


7 Days

by kaijawest



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Drug Use, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27319408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijawest/pseuds/kaijawest
Summary: Matt has a rough week and is very lucky Foggy is such a good friend.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written far before any of my other stuff and so was not designed to fit in with any of the other fics (though I don't think there's anything that directly indicates it couldn't). It sat collecting dust on my computer for quite some time. I did the exceedingly stupid thing of writing 95% of this prior to watching Defenders and season three of Daredevil. I apologize if Matt's characterization is off - I really didn't get the sense he was as (emotionally) capable of functioning as independently as it turns out he is. I literally haven't written any subsequent fics from Matt's POV since this cause I'm so worried I've botched that up. That aside, I think it mostly works okay given it occurs prior to Defenders/DD 3, and some things I worried about (Is anybody going to accept Matt having talking hallucinations?) turned out to be not a problem whatsoever after all. I will never, ever repeat the mistake of not finishing watching a completed tv series prior to puking up 35000+ words of fic. I have agonized way, WAY too much over whether to post or just delete this fic entirely. But dammit its also the first (fictional) thing I managed to write in NINE YEARS so I didn't exactly want to euthanize it. Plus it the longest thing I've ever written … by a lot. Also, its structually less straightforward than I usually do - switching tenses, POV, etc. and I did not have it beta'd so I really do hope its readible. Should you choose to leave any feedback can I ask that you let me know if the tenses/structure worked? I tried to minic those structural elements I've enjoyed in other people's works but I'm not so sure I succeeded? Would be exceedingly useful to know if its working or I should limit myself to very uncomplicated and straightworward (single tense/POV/timeline not jumping around at all, etc.) going forward.
> 
> This occurs between season one and season two.

He knows something’s up from the moment Matt walks stiffly into the office that morning, depositing his cane by the door in its customary spot. Karen greets Matt and he says his hellos back politely but doesn’t seem to want to converse more than is necessary. Foggy watches Matt cross the room towards his office and yeah, there’s definitely something going on in the way he moves that’s not right. He probably wouldn’t have noticed it had he not been looking. Foggy wonders just how many things have gone unnoticed recently.

But once they hit court in the afternoon Matt easily finds his stride. All confidence and the right words. In the courtroom is where he shines and Foggy is more than willing to let Matt lead for this particular segment because he’s plenty aware this is not his forte. He CAN do it … probably … is thankful he doesn’t have to, knows his skills are more in prep work and lining up the facts so Matt can knock them down in court.   
Their client is, obviously, thrilled they’ve won, hugs Foggy and then Matt exuberantly before they have a chance to even walk out of the courtroom. Foggy watches as Matt returns the unsolicited hug to be polite but doesn’t miss how the stiffness of this morning seems to be creeping back into his friend’s frame. He’s not sure if the bear hug hurt him or he’s just tired now that the case is over and most of the room has quickly cleared. Either way, they exchange a few pleasantries before their excited (and most importantly proven innocent) client takes off. 

Matt’s leaning on the table in front of him with one hand, gathering up his things with the other. As Foggy gathers up his own paperwork and shoves it back inside his bag he peeks over at Matt and notices the dark shadows under his friends eyes. They’re reasonably well hidden behind his dark red glasses but looking from the side its more noticeable.

“Ready to head out?” he asks and Matt nods. He hasn’t bothered to unfold his cane and shifts himself next to Foggy in a silent request for sighted guide. That’s uncommon for Matt to do this in court but its not totally unheard of either. Foggy offers his elbow and they join the last few stragglers still exiting the courtroom. Matt’s silent beside him and Foggy wants to ask if he’s okay but isn’t sure the question will be well received. Its like his friend has just deflated in the last five minutes. He’d been animated and sharp and clever when he needed to be but the moment court was dismissed Matt’s been like a leaky balloon, slowly deflating. As they pass trough the doorway, Matt clips his shoulder slightly. Usually Matt’s amazing at maneuvering around in space. And, now that Foggy knows the whole ‘World on Fire’ thing its only slightly less impressive. But Foggy is starting to realize more and more Matt needs to be concentrating to “see” in his way. Its not the first time he’s recognized this either.

“Oops,” Foggy says lightly as Matt quickly recovers from bumping the doorway. Its more than wide enough to accommodate them walking side by side. “You okay?” he asks, silently glad for a good excuse to finally ask.

“Tired,” is all Matt offers. 

“Tell me you’re not heroically bleeding out under that jacket,” Foggy says. He’s 90% joking cause he’s pretty sure that’s not the case but is super aware its actually possible nowadays.

“No, just tried,” Matt says with a sigh. He sounds it too.

They make their way out front and Foggy hails a cab quickly. Matt climbs in after him.

“Since today went well, its Friday AND you’ve said no all week I know you’re going to come for drinks at Josie’s, right?” his tone indicating he expects an answer in the affirmative.

“Ah Foggy…” Matt starts.

“No!” Foggy insists, the plan quickly coming together in his mind. “Matt you’ve been ‘working the night gig’ too often,” he says, selecting his words carefully given there’s a random cabbie up front. “Besides,” he continues, “Karen’s gonna think you don’t like her if you keep saying no.”

“Foggy, I spent all morning in the office with Karen. She knows I like her fine.”

There’s something slightly defensive in his tone but Foggy lets it go.

“Then I’m gonna think you don’t like me,” he says with a sad smile. “Come on man, you need to chill out a bit, take a night off. Blow off some steam. Pretend you remember how to have fun.”

“I blow off plenty of steam,” Matt says darkly. Foggy doesn’t miss the way Matt rubs absently at his slightly bruised knuckles. Foggy’s not sure how to address that given that he’s very much conflicted about Matt’s “night gig”. 

“Josie asked if you died last night.”

“What?” Matt sounds totally confused.

“You haven’t been showing up man. She’s worried about you.” It’s a stretch, Josie generally seems like she sooner throw patrons out in the street than inquire about their absence. 

“Or maybe she’s just worried I’m running out on my tab,” Matt says, ghost of a smile on his face.

Foggy knows he’s won. Matt hasn’t agreed to anything verbally but the shift it tone tells him his friend is at least trying to lighten up. Matt has been slowly unwinding during the ride and their conversation. Those little lines of pain around his eyes that had been noticeable in the courtroom are absent now. He’s a sitting back, relaxed comfortably in his seat which is a definite improvement to how stiffly he’d gotten in and settled into the cab initially.

“Probably yeah,” Foggy agrees. “I don’t even want to know what kind of astronomical amount that’s gotten to. But I think there’s definitely space for tonight to add to it,” he says in the most enticing voice he can manage. 

“Alright, alright,” Matt concedes, with a chuckle. “But you’re responsible for getting us home tonight.”

Bingo.

Foggy internally cheers knowing its mission accomplished. Matt is not only going to join him and Karen but he’s giving silent permission for Foggy to get him drunk. He’d probably never do it to himself but he’ll let Foggy guide him into some level of drunkenness. The “us” in ‘get us home’ isn’t a mistake – Matt’s giving Foggy responsibility over himself and that doesn’t happen often, especially after college and never since they formed Nelson and Murdock. Foggy’s not sure if he won by being persuasive or because Matt’s tired and not willing to put up a fight, but he doesn’t much care about the ‘why’ of the situation. He knows his friend and knows that Matt both needs a night off of Daredeviling AND his day job. They’ve had a successful, if long day and its totally reasonable they celebrate tonight.

“I’m gonna calling Karen to meet us there,” Foggy narrates as he pokes at his cell phone, still on silent from court. Matt nods then puts his head back on the headrest, closes his eyes. 

………………………

Josie’s is fairly busy when they arrive but there’s still some empty tables so they grab one and Karen heads up to the bar for their drinks. Foggy notices Matt plop down with a lot less grace than usual. His expression is neutral and essentially unreadable and Foggy suddenly starts rethinking his plan to help Matt take a night off. It seemed like a good idea – get him drunk, get him to relax and sleep tonight rather than going out doing god knows what to god knows who until almost sunrise. But he thinks Matt wants to be somewhere else right now, notices the slight tilting of his head like he’s listening to something Foggy can’t hear, and that’s probably exactly what’s happening. Before he has a chance to ask Karen returns with a borrowed tray covered in shots and well drinks. Its excessive and exactly what Foggy wants. Matt perks up, probably more from Karen’s presence than a real interest getting loaded.

“To Nelson and Murdock,” Foggy says, holding up a shot. “And a successful case!”

Karen seconds it with her own drink and Matt just smiles somewhat unconvincingly, “To Nelson and Murdock.”

……………

Though they’re pretty well matched for drinks consumed Matt’s at a distinct disadvantage. Or advantage depending on how you look at it, Foggy thinks. Foggy slept a full seven hours last night and Karen appears well rested. Foggy and Karen ate lunch while Matt had locked himself in his office dictating, recording and replaying his remarks. So while Foggy and Karen aren’t exactly totally sober they’re only tipsy at best. Foggy knows Matt’s really feeling it when he gets up to hit the washroom and catches his foot on the leg of the chair, stumbling slightly. He recovers quickly, almost gracefully, and turns around, gets two steps and returns for his cane, goes to leave and catches his foot on the same chair leg with exactly the same result. For a moment Foggy is sure Matt will say he’s had enough and leave right then. On a normal night, well one of the few when he can still convince Matt to actually come to Josie’s that is, Matt would have stopped way before this, would have switched from shots to beer several drinks ago. He hears Matt mutter, “Jesus,” before more successfully leaving the table, weaving through the patrons towards the washroom. The religious curse is somewhat unusual for him.

“Oh my god Foggy, is he okay?” Karen asks when Matt is out of earshot. Well, Foggy corrects himself, when she ‘thinks’ he’s out of earshot at any rate. “I thought you said this was a good idea. He doesn’t look good,” she says watching Matt make his way across the bar. 

Foggy reassures Karen that A) Matt is tired and B) Foggy has got this. “Trust me,” he finishes. “A few more drinks and he’ll be better.” Foggy knows Matt’s alcohol tolerance. Knows how far to push it, knows the difference between tipsy Matt (who Karen has seen) and drunk Matt (who Karen has most definitely not seen). Matt is neither a violent drunk (and thank god for that cause it would be downright dangerous) nor a maudlin one. They did (more than) enough drinking in school that he knows Matt generally falls into the adorable, bumbling drunk territory when he’s sufficiently loaded. Make that happy, adorable and bumbling drunk, he thinks as Matt rejoins them at the table. Rather than plop onto his chair again Matt’s just a little bit hesitant when he takes his seat, as if he’s not 100% sure the chair will be there. But that’s not what has Foggy’s attention. It’s the little smile on his friend’s face that tells him yup, Matt’s getting there. 

Karen pats Matt’s arm as she slips out of her seat to grab more drinks for them. Foggy watches as Matt’s head follows her, it’s a pretty good approximation of if his gaze was following her. Foggy thinks he missed something, or there’s something here he’s not catching but its forgotten soon enough.

“How you doing there buddy?” he asks, watching as Matt leans just a little too far to the left in his seat.

“M’ good,” he says, smiling. “Thanks Foggy.” It sounds decidedly sincere and probably refers to more than just Foggy’s polite inquiry.

“See I told you you just needed a night off.” Foggy is decidedly pleased with himself at this point.

………………….

They end up staying at their table until last call, shooting the shit and laughing. Matt has gotten more and more involved in the conversation (finally!) and laughs. Foggy gets the distinct impression that Matt is concentrating exclusively on their table. A minor near bar brawl breaks out across the room but Matt is the last to take notice and even then its clearly because of Karen and Foggy’s reaction to the ruckus. But its fine because WHEN Matt learns forward and gives you his full attention its all you can do not to tell him everything you know. The reflective glasses draw a person in, whether it’s a client or a lady or even Foggy himself. Its like you’re just talking to yourself in a mirror, its that easy. Matt can be a very good listener and he’s easy to open up to. Foggy knows Matt might be actually focused to ten different things most of the time. Or it could be ten thousand, who knows, Foggy’s still not that clear on how Matt really functions with those super senses. But when he turns to you, leans forward and draws out what you need to say its hard to deny. And that superpower is exactly how Matt wins drinking games.

Josie’s barking cry of last call startles Matt who covers it with a laugh at nothing or maybe just at himself, its hard to tell. He’s hanging onto the side of the table in front of him, fingers gripping it hard. 

…………..

Foggy steers Matt towards the washroom as the bar begins to empty. At the courthouse earlier Matt had gently taken Foggy’s elbow and (mostly) successfully navigated his way around. Foggy was now literally pushing Matt from behind with his hands on his shoulders. Its easier and faster given that Matt is now unsteady as hell. Foggy lines his friend up in front of the urinal and steps away to deal with his own business.  
“Its going to take forever to get a cab, we should have taken off a half hour ago instead,” Foggy say, already planning their way home. He’s sobered up quite a bit over the last hour, switching to beer had been a good choice. Foggy knows he’s got his work cut out for him getting Matt home in this state. He watches his friend lose balance, thrusting a hand forward to grip the tile in front of him. Matt laughs softly. 

“Hey, do not pee on your shoes, “ Foggy says as he passes by on his way to the sink. He claps Matt on the shoulder as he brushes by. Matt starts laughing in earnest. “I’m serious, those are your work shoes buddy.”

Matt finishes up, makes his way over to the sink, in what is not exactly a straight line. Foggy is pretty sure Matt wouldn’t even consider trailing his fingers along the walls in this dive. He’s suddenly thankful Matt can’t see what a shithole this bathroom is – cracked and mildew covered ceiling, floor that probably hadn’t seen a mop in a decade and single fluorescent light above them, flickering like it’s on its last legs. When Matt sidles up to him he’s only slightly surprised to feel a bump against his side then see his wobbly friend move back and fumble for the ancient tap. Matt washes his hands but his head is turned Foggy’s way giving him a small smile. Its unclear if the bump was some kind of affection nudge or an accident, Foggy isn’t too concerned one way or another.

“So, today went well. Tonight was good, right?” he asks, hoping for confirmation that dragging his reluctant partner was the right plan. Matt seemed to enjoy himself once he’d had enough to drink, once he actually became engaged with his friends. 

“Yeah,” Matt replies with a hesitation just long enough for Foggy to confirm the response was either a lie or a half lie. He may not be able to hear a heartbeat but Foggy can read Matt just fine. He would bet $100 that pause had nothing to do with alcohol. “Yeah, it wasss good.” Matt smiles at him again before dangerously listing to the side. Foggy grabs his tippy friend by the lapels and straightens him up. Matt looks quite the mess. For a guy who never has a hair out of place at work (how does he even manage that anyway?) its bordering on bed head by now. Matt’s tie is loosened, his top button having been undone many hours ago. Though it wasn’t the intension, Foggy has managed to further rumple Matt’s shirt and half untuck it in his effort to get his rather wobbly friend properly upright. He looks like someone who’s spent all night in Josie’s and possibly all day before that as well. Taking in the rumpled and scruffy look of his friend, Foggy wonders if anybody from court today would even recognize Matt right now – the chasm between clean cut, professional, stone sober and dead serious lawyer and the weaving, giggle prone man before him is staggering. Still, Matt seems happy if unfocused, more loose around the edges than Foggy has seen him in a very long time. And he looks impossibly young. Not that Matt usually looks aged, its just the last few months have really been taking it out of him. He’s taken on too much, is working all hours at either his legit job or his ‘side gig’ and its not had the best look on his health. The lines around his sightless eyes have noticeably deepened over the past few months, the tension and exhaustion is usually just below the surface but still there. Matt can put on a good show but Foggy’s decided to be a lot more observant these days and he’s catching what he’d dismissed before. But right now Matt looks like a rumpled puppy and Foggy thinks he’d better keep a good hold on him when they walk out of the bar lest he get scooped up by some cougar who wants to take him home and take him to bed.

They head outside just in time to wish Karen a good night as she climbs into the last cab. Foggy tells Matt they’re no more cabs and asks whether he’d rather wait and call an Uber or just walk home. Matt seems confused by the question, head cocked to the side. 

“You wanna walk home?” he asks, trying to phrase it differently. “CAN you walk home?” he asks noticing Matt’s swaying slightly, his head turned as though he’s looking at the alley to their left. Finally he faces Foggy and seems understand what he’s being asked. 

“Yeah, let’sss walk,” he slurs out.

Foggy nudge’s Matt’s arm gently (last thing he needs to do is knock him over). Matt clamps onto Foggy’s elbow and they head off towards Matt’s apartment. 

Within half a block Foggy realizes while he himself may have mostly sobered up, Matt’s plastered and getting more drunk by the minute. Probably should have slowed him down on the whiskey at the end cause it seems like he’s just absorbing more alcohol into his bloodstream. Maybe he should have made sure Matt ate dinner first. 

“Where’sss m’ cane?” Matt asks for the third time this block. Foggy’s got it folded up, has been hanging onto it for him since they left their table at the bar. 

“Still got it. You want to use it?” He’s surprised Matt would want to try to maneuver himself around the neighbourhood on his own the way the man is leaning into him. “I thought you didn’t even really need it,” thinking how someone who can (while sober) flip and climb and run across the god damned roof tops can’t really be dependant on such a simple and limiting device. 

“Helps,” Matt says without further explanation. 

Foggy pauses, unfolds Matt’s cane and hands it over. When they begin walking again Matt’s still glued to Foggy’s side but now his cane is pushing in front of him. Not the quiet, precise, rhythmic taps Foggy’s use to. Its just scraping along the ground in a weaved line in front of them that doesn’t seem even remotely useful. 

“How does it help, Matt?” 

“Easssier. Don’ need to concentrate so mushhh.”

Foggy doesn’t really understand the answer entirely but he lets it go. “You don’t need to concentrate on anything but putting one foot in front of the other, buddy.” He hears and feels Matt bark out a loud, disbelieving laugh at that, like it’s the most unreasonable thing he’s ever said. “I’ll concentrate for the both of us.”

Apparently that was either the wrong thing to say or the most right cause Matt stops dead in his tracks, drops his cane. 

“Matt?” he asks, not sure where this is going and really, really hoping it doesn’t end in puke. Matt hasn’t seemed like he was going to throw up so far but the more Foggy thinks about it it was really stupid not to grab dinner before drinks. But he’d been afraid if they did Matt would find an excuse to slip away for the night before they even made it to Josie’s. However all that alcohol on an empty stomach was just asking for trouble.   
But it isn’t a sick stomach that made Matt stop so abruptly. Foggy is suddenly enveloped in a crushing hug. And now he’s slightly worried cause this isn’t typical of either sober Matt or drunk Matt either. 

“Please concentrate for me. Its so hard. You have no idea, Foggy. Please .. please…” For a moment Matt doesn’t sound drunk at all. He sounds desperate in a way that’s Foggy’s never heard. And tired. Very, very tired.  
Foggy squeezes the hug back, more than a little concerned. None of this is within Matt’s usual behaviour. Not what he knows anyway, and its been a lot of years so Foggy likes to think he had a good idea what to expect from his friend. Or he did anyway, before the Daredeviling began. Now he’s less and less sure he’s ever really known Matt at all.

“Okay Matt, I got his. I’m gonna get us home,” pretending Matt’s referring to nothing more than their walk. Foggy can feel through the body against him that this goes deeper.   
They resume their trek across Hell’s Kitchen, Matt leaning ever more against Foggy, cane pushing along the sidewalk guiding their way.

There’s a hot dog vendor on the corner ahead and Foggy thinks its late but super convenient as he really needs to get some food into his partner to soak up some of the booze. He’s also ravenous himself and knows there’s not likely to be much in the way of food at Matt’s place.

“You wanna get some street meat, Matt?” 

Matt pulls himself a bit away from Foggy, less leaned into him and more upright. He overcorrects and swerves a bit but gets it together okay. He pauses, Foggy stops too. Matt takes a noticeable sniff of the air, all the subtlety of someone who’s drunk. “Noooooo,” he says, nose wrinkling up in disgust. 

Foggy knows a battle he can’t win when he sees one and decides hotdogs are off the menu. Damn. 

“Okay,” he says as they pass the vendor and his hot dog cart. “Well, we’ve gotta find food somewhere. I need to eat and you definitely need to eat before bed.”

“Finger in the hotdogs,” Matt mumbles into Foggy’ shoulder. Foggy hopes he’s not serious. He really hopes Matt just doesn’t want food touched by a greasy guy on the street and there’s not actually a human digit floating in the hotdog water. 

“You wanna order pizza when we get back to your place?”

He feels Matt nod against him. 

“You’re not gonna puke are you?” maybe it’s the hotdog water thing but Foggy feels vaguely nauseous, wonders if Matt feels the same.

With no warning Matt pulls away from Foggy, turns on his heel and quickly heads down a random alley. Foggy follows, keeping a distance in case there’s splash zone for the vomit he’s sure is coming. But Matt just stops and stands stock still, not wavering or listing for the moment, clearly focused on … something. Its an empty alley as far a Foggy can tell. If Matt didn’t come here to puke Foggy has no idea what’s up.

“What’re you doing?”

“Lissstening,” Matt says. 

“What’re we listening for?” 

A pause. “Nevermind its gone.” He sounds terribly disappointed. 

“OOOkay,” Foggy throws an arm around Matt’s shoulder’s a steers him back toward the street. “Remember the only thing you need to concentrate on is putting on foot in front of the other, right? Remember: I got this. For both of us.”

“Yes,” Matt sounds extremely relieved. “Where’s my cane?”

Foggy’s lost count of how many times Matt’s asked this since they left the bar. “Still in your hand where you left it.”

Matt starts at this, apparently just now noticing what’s in his hand. “Wasn’ makin’ the right sound.”

“Its not very talkative on account of being an inanimate object,” Foggy says lightly. But he realizes Matt is more likely referring to the dragging scrape that’s been happening tonight rather than the neat and precise taps that usually accompany Matt. 

Matt starts laughing, in a hiccoughing, drunken way that’s less joyful and more impaired reaction. He’s always been a giggly drunk but tonight the playful, relaxed laugh from earlier has started to morph into something unsettling. The sound gives Foggy the creeps. That hollow laugh has an edge to it like Matt’s haunted and Foggy doesn’t recognize it from any time before.

……………………..

Stairs seem to present more of an issue than he anticipated. Matt trips up them no less than four times before they get up to his floor. Whatever coordination he possessed on their walk home has devolved rapidly the closer they got to the apartment. It would be almost funny watching Matt trip over his own feet if it wasn’t so so far off from his usual grace. Foggy has always been impressed with the way Matt moves smoothly and confidently despite not seeing any number of obstacles he deftly avoids. And those shaky phone vids of Daredevil leaping and fighting have shown Foggy that his friend is not just graceful in his general movements – he’s capable of moving like across between a ninja and circe de solei performer under the cover of night. Foggy feels a twinge of regret for getting Matt so drunk that he can barely stumble home. He really thought it would help, knew Matt had been going full tilt lawyering during the day and serious vigilantism during the night. Surely one night off to relax had to be good for him. Right?

Foggy slips his hand into Matt’s suit jacket and retrieves his keys and gets the door to the apartment open for them. Matt all but falls inside, stumbling down the hallway to his couch. He half sits, half falls onto it with a small oof. Foggy looks at him for a moment, the slumped posture reminding him sharply of The Day (cause forever its going to be capitalized in his mind) he spent with Matt not that long ago. ‘The Worst God Damed Day in Our Friendship,’ he thinks. He’s not sure anything will top his nightmare fuel more than the memory of Matt half dead on that sofa, trying to weakly defend himself against Foggy’s rage of betrayal. 

Matt’s fumbling with his tie and looks like he’s not going anywhere or about to pass out so Foggy ducks into the washroom, memories from The Day top of mind, he needs an escape from his friend for a moment.   
By the time he gets out Matt’s managed to free himself of his tie and is struggling to get his jacket off unsuccessfully. His glasses are gone and his eyes look extra unfocussed if that’s a thing. Like sometimes Matt can aim his gaze right and its really unnerving being on the end of that dead eyed stare. It took Foggy awhile to get use to it in the beginning. He was thankful Matt’s eyes where still in his head, of course, but he didn’t care much for the rare times Matt’s aim was true and they connected with him. It gave him the sensation his friend was peering into his soul, and not in any good kind of way. Right now though they’re roving around more than usual. Its mildly unsettling but he’s seen it before, usually under these same circumstances where he’s been the reason Matt was wasted. He wonders idly if Matt purposely keeps his eyes steady normally for others benefit when there’s no lenses to hide behind. 

“You want a hand?” he asks seeing as Matt is not having any success with getting his jacket off, possibly because he’s seated and leaning against the back of the couch.

Matt sighs but its more relief than irritation. “Yes.”

Foggy walks over, brushes Matt’s hands aside and relatively easily manhandles him out of his jacket. Its not the first time he’s done this but any other time the movements did not come along with memories of helping Claire maneuver a half dead Daredevil out of his clothing. This is easier. And, unfortunately comes with very similar results. Matt has a noticeable amount of blood on his shirt. Nothing like the Nobu night but still.  
“Oh shit,” Foggy reacts. “Matt what happened? There’s blood on you?” Its mostly dried to reddish brown stains on his shirt. But its in three separate places that Foggy can see, and that’s just the front of him. “Did you get hurt last night?”

“Huh?” Matt asks, sounding not sure what Foggy’s talking about. “Oh yeah, forgot, doesssn’t hurt now.” He smiles and that’s disconcerting to Foggy given the subject matter.

“Jeez Matt. Take your shirt off, I want to see if you’re still bleeding.”

Matt tries to comply but is fumbling with the buttons, normally deft fingers unable to coordinate enough to deal with the row of tiny fasteners. Foggy nudges his hands away and Matt leans back, lets Foggy deal with it without a fuss. 

There’s a number of cuts, most held together with strip strips but two are full of neat, small dark stitches. Nothing is actively bleeding thankfully but there’s dried blood on his skin around several cuts. Foggy sighs, gets up to get a towel. “Stay there,” he says probably unnecessarily given the fact that Matt looks like he’s slowly becoming one with his couch, sagging further and further into it. He finds a dark coloured face cloth (though he wonders why he even worries about it since Matt wouldn’t see the stains anyway) brings it back dampened so he can help Matt get cleaned up.

“Couldn’t take m’ jacket off.”

“Yeah we got it off,” Foggy says dismissively, looking down and planning his attack on the blood crusted chest before him. 

“All. Day,” Matt says in a way that sounds like it supposed to be meaningful. “Hadda keep it on ALL DAY.”

“The bleeding happened this morning?” Foggy asks. He hates the thought of Matt having hidden yet another thing from him despite being in his company pretty much continuously since nine o’clock this morning.

“Yeah,” Matt confirms, head bobbing drunkenly.

Foggy’s not sure Matt’s going to be okay with him cleaning off his chest. It’s different than that night when he was bleeding out on the floor six feet away. Matt’s awake and more or less aware this time.   
Matt must be aware of his internal struggle, or he’s just good at predicting how Foggy’s going to help him because he reaches his open hand up for Foggy to deposit the dampened cloth in. Foggy hesitantly hands it over not sure if Matt’s got this given his total inability to deal with clothing. Unsurprisingly, Matt is less than able to effectively clean up the dried blood and looks like he’s actually doing a better job of pulling up the edges of the steri strips. It probably doesn’t help that he can’t actually see where the old blood is clinging to himself so he’s just sort of trying to get everywhere. Before he can disturb one of the stitched cuts Foggy stops his hand and gently pulls the cloth from Matt’s numb fingers. “Lean back, I’ve got this.” Matt does, letting his head flop back against the couch.

“Where’s my cane?” Matt asks distractedly as Foggy carefully wipes away the old, crusty blood from his friend’s chest.

Foggy holds in the sigh of irritation cause he’s pretty sure for whatever reason Matt is more concerned with the location of his cane tonight than himself. “It’s by the door where it belongs.”

“Okay.” Matt seems satisfied with the answer. 

“Does this hurt?” Foggy asks. He can’t tell if he’s hurting Matt. The cuts look like they hurt and he tried to get the cloth close to the but not right over them. 

“Not now. Claire said to leave them be and to not stretch them for a few days,” he says over a yawn. “If I pop them she says I have to re-stitch them myself.”

Foggy’s not sure if Claire would make good on that promise but he certainly doesn’t want to see Matt try his hand at stitching so he is even more careful in his cleaning so as not to disturb the stitched areas. “Okay, well I don’t want to see that so let’s make sure they don’t pop.” He pauses and adds, “I’ve seen your attempts at handwriting, let me tell you there is no way you could manage something this small and exact.”

“You’d be surprised,” Matt comments, sounding somewhat more sober.

“Lean forward,” Foggy instructs and is pleased that when he checks there’s no cuts on his back. He gives Matt shoulders a slight push and Matt flops bonelessly back against the couch. Foggy studies the stitched up wounds and wonders if Claire’s threat about the stitches is what kept Matt from his regularly scheduled programming tonight more than anything Foggy’s done. He decides he doesn’t really want the answer.

“You want me to order pizza?” 

When Matt starts shaking his head no he adds, “Cause we both know if you don’t eat before laying down you’re definitely going to puke.” 

Matt waves in a dismissive way but Foggy can tell he gets the point.

By the time the pizza arrives Matt’s a bit less drunk. He’s still slumped on the sofa in a way that says he has zero interest in getting up right now. But he’s awake, if obviously tired. Foggy forces two glasses of water on him, reminding him he doesn’t want a worse hangover tomorrow for getting dehydrated. 

Matt warns Foggy when the pizza guy gets up the stairs and onto their floor so Foggy can get the door. They throw the open pizza box onto the coffee table and dive in. For a few minutes there’s nothing but munching. Foggy sneaks a glance at Matt to see him somewhat robotically eating, eyes half closed. He gives Matt ten minutes before he’s passed out. Which is fine since the dark smudges under his eyes speak to just how badly he needs to get some rest. As he’s watching Matt’s head nods forward only to jerk back up. He resumes chewing and Foggy is now kinda worried he’ll nod off mid chew and choke. 

“You done?”

He wordlessly nods and Foggy grabs the mostly eaten slice from him just in time for Matt to keel over from sitting to half laying on his couch, feet still on the floor. 

“Bedtime,” Foggy announces in a sign song voice. “You wanna sleep here or actually go to bed?” He hopes Matt chooses the couch because he doesn’t really want to help his drowsy friend all the way to the bedroom and doubts Matt can get there under his own power right now. Plus, its easier to wedge Matt into a safe recovery position on the less squishy couch. 

Matt answers by rolling himself over and more effectively laying on the couch. His eyes are closed and Foggy can tell he’s barely aware of what’s going on anymore. He retrieves a blanket and pillow and gets Matt arranged properly on the couch, take off his shoes and pushes them under the furniture so he doesn’t trip over them later. He gives Matt’s shoulder a gentle shake and Matt’s eyes flutter open, narrowed and unseeingly aimed at his shoulder. “If you wake up in the night and want to go out Daredeviling just don’t. Not tonight. Please?” He’s pretty sure Matt’s just going to pass out for the night but he’s not taking any chances. “I really don’t want you stumbling off a rooftop tonight.” ‘Tonight or any other,’ he adds in his head.

“Okay Foggy,” Matt answers thickly. “You going home?”

“Hell no, I’m crashing in your comfy bed.” Foggy has no interest in hauling his ass across Hell’s Kitchen at stupid o’clock in the morning. Plus, he’s definitely sure he should keep an eye on Matt just in case his still half drunk ass decides to get up before he’s balanced and sure footed again. 

Matt huffs a laugh, snuggles deeper into the cushions and says, “If you’re gonna stay could you keep concentrating for the both of us?”

“Sure buddy,” Foggy says reassuringly, not to sure what Matt’s getting at given that they’re not trying to navigate their way home now and Matt’s cuddled up safe and secure on his sofa. “I got this.”  
Matt smiles sleepily and thanks him before nodding off almost immediately. Foggy goes to the kitchen and grabs another glass of water to leave on the coffee table in case Matt wakes up thirsty. Then he goes back and grabs six more glasses. He places them in a pyramid along the edge to the living room closet doors so it can’t be opened without disturbing them. Its not the first time he’s set a trap in case he needs to catch a wayward Matt, just hasn’t needed to do so since college.

Fairly pleased with his makeshift alarm Foggy heads for Matt’s bedroom. Sober Matt might detect those glasses in his way, between him and The Suit, but Foggy is willing to bet half drunk Matt will knock them over and break them should he get the idea to get up to his regular nighttime shenanigans. Foggy leaves the bedroom door open so he can hear if Matt needs help and flops into the bed without even bothering to take off his clothes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's see how that went from Matt's perspective now...

Claire is less than impressed with him, Matt can tell without benefit of super senses. She’s not holding back tonight. Somehow she’s made a lecture last through stitching up two cuts. Still, she doesn’t actively try to dissuade him from his nighttime duties, its more she’s not happy with him getting injured. Matt would rather not get sliced up either thank you very much, but its sometimes unavoidable.

“There, done,” she says as she cuts the thread. “I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again, Matt, you pull those and you’re going to be stuck fixing yourself up.” Its an empty threat and they both know it. She’s had to re-do his stitches on several occasions. Matt COULD do it himself but it would be awkward given the placement, part of the reason he’d called her in the first place. He wisely decides not to tell her could do it. The last thing he wants is to tick her off after she’s helped him yet again at the drop of a hat. He really doesn’t want to give her any reason to get frustrated with him, to leave him to his own devices next time this happens (cause they both know they’ll be a next time), doesn’t want to give her a reason to leave him alone in this forever. He needs her more than he’s happy to admit, needs the support at least as much as the skillful threading on his body. Foggy is not exactly supportive of Matt’s Daredeviling (Foggy’s term, not Matt’s). He really, really needs someone in his life who’s not actively reminding him they disapprove of his choices.

“I’ll be careful,” he reassures her as he re-buttons his shirt. Claire is gathering up supplies but Matt gives what he hopes is a placating grin in her general direction.

“I’m serious Matt. Take it easy for a couple days, let them at least start to heal before you go … doing your thing.” He feels her wave her hand around like its giving more explanation on his “thing”.

“Promise.” He mostly means it. There’s no reason a few stitches should completely curtail his nightly excursions. He wouldn’t get involved with any serious fights but he could still get around just fine. It didn’t even hurt that much he thought ‘til he stood up and felt the new stitches move and shift, felt frayed edges of his skin scrape against each other. And he was pretty sure she didn’t miss his slight grimace of pain upon standing.

“Uh huh,” Claire sounded totally unconvinced. “You’ve got my number,” she said. He’s pretty sure she’s leaving unsaid the part about needing that number for when he inevitably rips the stitches open. As he walks her out Matt thinks to himself maybe he will at least make an effort to take things down a notch or two so she doesn’t need to come back right away. Maybe. For tonight at least.

“Lying’s a sin Matthew,” she shoots out as the door closes. Damn, she always know just what to say to cut right through him.

……………….

After grabbing three hours of sleep Matt heads into work. He’s very tired and his mind refuses to focus properly no matter how hard he tries to arrange it into some semblance of order. He’s less careful than he promised himself he’d be a last night (or, more accurately, this morning) and on his walk to work he thinks he feels the tickle of blood on his side. He’s too close to work now to head back home to change though and he can tell its just a little blood. Its annoying since he’s done nothing more than get dressed and walk to work. Its not like he tempted the stitches to act up by doing anything ever remotely Daredevilsh. He sighs, annoyed that Foggy’s ability to change his alter ego’s name into an adjective or a verb at will seems to have transferred to him. No matter, he just decides to keep his jacket on in case there’s any blood spotting, which yeah, there definitely is cause he can smell it now. 

When he gets to the closed door to their office he pauses and takes a deep breath, willing himself into a better mood. He needs to give his coworkers a friendly greeting whether he feels good or not. No point in making them suspicious what he was up to last night. Karen, because he doesn’t want her to have any idea what he gets up to, and Foggy cause Matt really can’t deal with his disapproving looks. Oh he can tell when Foggy is making a face of near disgust related to his nighttime activities. Doesn’t need actual vision to sense the waves of recrimination and irritation over Matt’s choices. ‘As if it was ever a choice. It was always just a matter of time,’ he thinks.

He shakes away the thoughts and opens the door. 

“Good morning,” says Karen brightly. He tries to match her enthusiasm with a smile and a good morning back as he pops his cane into the corner by the door. He doesn’t lean far, hopping if he’s careful there won’t be anymore bleeding. He’s so accustomed to motoring through pain he forgets its actually a helpful reminder of the body saying there’s something wrong. Maybe if he listened to those reminders he wouldn’t keep reopening wounds. He’s doubtful.

Matt quickly makes his way to his own office, avoiding any more pleasantries. He can’t deal with it right now and is trying to get his head into work mode. There’s actually a lot he needs to prepare before court at 1 pm this afternoon. And given how unfocussed he feels so far today its going to be like pulling teeth to force himself to get through everything he needs to get done. He’s tempted to ask Foggy for help.   
Well, tempted til the man strolls into his office. There’s an air of questioning before Foggy even open his mouth. Matts too tired to explain to himself HOW he knows Foggy’s about to ask how he’s doing.

“You okay?” Foggy asks, none of his usual preamble. That’s not a great sign. But Matt really doesn’t need Foggy bringing up his distaste for Matt’s “other” job right now.

“Yup, just tired,” Matt as dismissively as he can, not wanting to go into details. He’s really trying to get into lawyer headspace here but all he can think about is how much he needs to do for this city. There’s at least five things he can think of off the top of his head the Devil needs to check out and all of them have to wait. He wonders for a moment why Daredevil so readily bleeds into his day job. It certainly doesn’t work in reverse. He’s never once been vaulting over rooftops only to become distracted by thoughts of tort reform. 

“I really need to go over my diction,” Matt says, gesturing to the recorder in front of him. Its not exactly a dismissal but given he needs to record its clearly something that would require silence from anyone else in the room. Foggy takes the hint, Matt hopes he’s not being too rude but he just doesn’t want to get into things right now. 

“Okay,” Foggy says, sounding just a little hurt while backing out and closing the door. 

Matt listens briefly to Karen and Foggy’s worried conversation across the office for a few moments before tuning them out. He powers on his laptop and wills himself to get focused.  
…………………..  
The case is dismissed and all charges dropped. Matt likes to think he’s not overly egotistical but he knows he just nailed it in there. He was on top of his game, rapid fire delivery and convincing enough to accomplish what no public defender would have. His client is ecstatic. Matt isn’t super happy about the bear hug he receives, mainly because it came without warning as he was not paying attention to the movements of his client. But he is pleased with the result and tries to express that as he and Foggy say their goodbyes. The court is about half way emptied by the time Matt starts collecting his things. With less people around Matt can feel his need to sense everything in the room slow down a bit. His tiredness comes back with a vengeance and he leans heavily on the table. Its not at all dissimilar to how he sometimes feels when putting the Devil to bed for the night, apparently the adrenaline of fighting at court has left him and he feels worn now. Puppet with no more strings. Can’t summon the energy to do more than lean for a moment. Its been too many sleepless nights. And way too much stressing.

Hopefully Foggy doesn’t think too much when Matt subtly slides in beside his friend. He feels Foggy’s elbow shift towards him and is really thankful his friend doesn’t make him ask. Its way too much effort for his tired being to navigate out of the courthouse. Or maybe its too much effort to imitate a blind man getting around seeing as he knows the boundaries of the space fairly well. Its one of those times he’d like to just walk out without pretenses. He can’t be bothered to unfold his cane, again thankful for Foggy’s arm.

Matt clips his shoulder on the edge of the doorframe as they leave. Its not for show, he really didn’t do a good job of observing the space. There’s no excuse beyond he’s too tired to concentrate on where the edges of things are around him beyond Foggy’s comfortable warmth next to him. Its certainly not the first time he’s misjudged a space but its not something that happens on the regular. Probably why Foggy asks if he’s okay. He can’t start unloading on Foggy here, not now and maybe not ever again so he just tells him he’s tired and hopes his explanation is sufficient.  
“Tell me you’re not heroically bleeding out under that jacket.”

How. The. Fuck. Matt’s almost impressed Foggy caught him. Must be a lucky guess cause there’s no way Foggy can smell the subtle scent of blood on him. That bear hug had managed to re-open one of the cuts just a little. Enough to be annoying. Still, it’s a little too on the head. Maybe he’s just become that predictable. Maybe Foggy knows him better than he wants to admit.  
“No, just tried,” he lies. Well half lies cause he is damned tired, but he’s certainly not bleeding out. Maybe he can grab a few hours of sleep between now and when he has to head out for the night. There’s probably no time though. The Devil needs to go down to 77th street as soon as possible to check something out.

They quickly get a cab and Matt wants to sleep right there in the back seat. He wants to undo his seatbelt and curl up next to Foggy and snooze til Monday. He really wants to think about something other than the five, no wait, six leads Daredevil needs to follow up on asap. He shifts in his seat, feels the half dried blood on his shirt scrape and shift abrasively against his wounded skin. He really wishes the cabbie would put his window up because there’s way, way too much information flying in on the breeze. He doesn’t want to hear snippets of conversations, scents of the city. He needs to focus on either how he’s going to deal with those six leads or he needs to pay attention to his conversation with Foggy. That would be good too. Speaking of, Foggy’s winding up to pitch him some idea. He half hopes its dinner because there’s still a few hours of daylight and if he’s not going to sleep before heading out tonight he could use some food. He knows for sure there’s pretty much nothing edible in his fridge and Daredevil burns calories like crazy. He’d skipped lunch so he absolutely needs to grab some dinner as fuel for the night.

“Since today went well, its Friday AND you’ve said no all week I know you’re going to come for drinks at Josie’s, right?” Something in the way Foggy says it pushes strongly for a yes.  
No way. He does not have time for drinks. That means all evening and he’s got other things to do rather than waste time.

“Ah Foggy…” he starts, ready to somehow excuse himself. Part of him, the smaller and quieter part, acknowledges that maybe Matt Murdock would like to spend the night with his friends pretending everything in Hell’s Kitchen isn’t falling to shit. Daredevil on the other hand is a busy guy and doesn’t take Fridays off.

“No!” Foggy says almost sharply. “Matt you’ve been ‘working the night gig’ too often.” 

Ah there it is. The condemnation he was waiting for. Matt thinks Foggy even motioned an air quote when referencing his nightly activities. 

“Besides, Karen’s gonna think you don’t like her if you keep saying no.”

And for no good reason that bugs him. He doesn’t want Karen to think he doesn’t like her. He does like her, maybe more than he should. And definitely more than he’s told her. The last thing he wants is for her to think he’s avoiding her.

“Foggy, I spent all morning in the office with Karen. She knows I like her fine.”

This is another half truth (funny how those keep piling up. Are there half sins cause Matt’s sure he’s piled enough of those up to count by now if that’s possible). Yes, technically they had been in the same office but Matt knows he spent all morning avoiding both Karen and Foggy. He’s glad his partner doesn’t point that out however.

“Then I’m gonna think you don’t like me.” Ouch. Low blow from his best friend, whether he can hear the smile in Foggy’s voice or not the remark stings. “Come on man, you need to chill out a bit, take a night off. Blow off some steam. Pretend you remember how to have fun.”

And suddenly Matt’s back in school, sitting in their dorm room, half letting himself be convinced by Foggy to ease back on the single focus that is his academic career and take a night off. The circumstance are different but it’s the same old tune. And Foggy is nothing if not convincing. He’d been very successful at swaying Matt into blowing off studying on Friday nights to go to the bar. Matt didn’t necessarily give that much resistance to the idea of blowing off steam back then. Back then.

“I blow off plenty of steam,” he defends without specifying he’s referring to beating the hell out of people who deserve it on the regular.

“Josie asked if you died last night.”

“What?” For a moment Matt wonders how Josie could even know he got hurt last night. No, that doesn’t make sense. Matt’s tired brain thinks he’s not even following this conversation correctly anymore. 

“You haven’t been showing up man. She’s worried about you,” Foggy tells him.

He doesn’t actually like the idea of Josie asking after him. He starts to wonder who else he’s worrying by spending his nights as Daredevil and not Matt Murdock. He thinks back and realizes it really has been some time since he’s made an appearance at their favorite drive bar. Maybe he has been drawing suspicion to himself by being absent so long. 

“Or maybe she’s just worried I’m running out on my tab,” he says but doesn’t mean it. Damn. Foggy’s won somehow. Matt knows he’s going to cave. There’s a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t and a million things Daredevil needs to do tonight but maybe Matt Murdock just needs a night off. Foggy’s generally a better judge of this anyhow, always has been. Matt knows he has a tendency (okay more than a tendency) to fixate. He’s been driven all his life to accomplish one thing or another and he’s admittedly blinded to the fact that he needs to take a break. 

“Probably yeah,” Foggy agrees about the bar tab. “I don’t even want to know what kind of astronomical amount that’s gotten to. But I think there’s definitely space for tonight to add to it tonight,” and that tone, that almost conspiratory way he has of convincing Matt is going full force. Matt is all but helpless to resist it. He can stand firm on the big things like being Daredevil and all that entails but when Foggy tries to convince him of the details he’s unable to resist. 

“Alright, alright,” he concedes, with a chuckle. “But you’re responsible for getting us home tonight.”

He definitely chooses his words carefully. Its verbatim what he use to say when they were in law school. Not that Foggy needed to get HIM home but that he need to get THEM home. They may not live together anymore but he’s still willing to give that responsibility over to his best friend. They both know Matt is really saying, ‘Okay fine, get me drunk but you’re making sure I get home safely.’ He’s not 100% sure how he lost this argument but decides rather than attribute it to his lack of resolve, he’s going to blame Foggy’s excellent convincing skills. 

Foggy tells him he’s going to call Karen to meet them. Since its going to be a long night Matt takes the time to slouch down in his seat and put his head back. He won’t fall asleep but he might doze. Foggy’s chattering on the phone blends into the background as Matt tries to ignore the breeze from the open window up front and all the information that blows in with it. 

……………………

Matt is seriously rethinking his decision once they’re seated at a table in Josie’s. He can almost block out the sounds of the streets beyond the bar. But he keeps picking up on things that sound like they need his attention more than the bar does. Its not cries for help, nothing that obvious, but he can’t shake the idea that there’s a whole city out there he needs to deal with. He almost doesn’t notice Karen returning to the table with their drinks. He tries to forget what’s happening or not happening outside the building and focus on the now.

“To Nelson and Murdock,” Foggy says in a cheer, “and a successful case!”

Karen agrees and Matt deftly snatches up a drink, the first one his tired fingers come in contact with, not overly concerned what it is.

“To Nelson and Murdock,” he toasts and tosses back his drink. He shoves the Devil down deep and tries to tell himself tonight he’s Matt Murdock and that’s it. He’s just another (semi)regular in a crowd of people looking to drink their night away.  
………………..  
The evening passes quickly. Matt is doing better and better at tuning out the distractions outside the building. He’s focusing as best he can on his friends and the conversation flows well. He thinks maybe he should have insisted they stop for food before this cause the shots are going right to his head. But Foggy had been so excited to get to the bar, to get Matt here, that he couldn’t convince himself to ask for a detour. Things have been somewhat strained (to say the least) the past few months ever since the night when Foggy met Matt’s alter ego. Matt figures he’d be happy to let the rest of his life go by without ever hearing Foggy’s intense sense of betrayal again. He knows his friend brought him here far more for his sake than for himself. There is a pleasant feeling of nostalgia from being here, with his friend, knowing that Foggy will get him home safely. Matt knows he’s already past the point where he’d have switched to beer normally, and a little past the point where he’d usually excuse himself for the evening while he still had all his faculties to get home on his own in one piece.  
All those drinks are making themselves known and Matt realizes he needs to hit the restroom. He’s not eager to stand up, is pretty sure its gonna hit him all the harder once he does. He’s embarrassed when he nearly trips over his chair and tries to get away quickly only to remember how many moving people, tables, chairs and such are between him and the washroom. He can make them all out, identify pretty much everything in the place but orienting them in relation to himself while moving is problematic right now. It’s a lot to sort through and the music in the background is scrambling the last of his senses. He quickly reaches for his cane on the table only to miss it by a couple inches on the first try. When his foot catches the chair a second time he curses quietly but leaves the table without apologizing cause he really, really needs to pee now. He makes his way across the bar as carefully as he can through the sea of people and objects, weaving around as best he’s able. Or maybe just weaving he thinks after bumping into someone and quickly apologizing. He thinks he picks up Karen asking Foggy about him but can’t seem to care enough to maintain his concentration on their conversation as he slips into the bathroom.

When the door swings shut behind him he’s thankful for the sudden muffling of the music floating through the bar and straight into his head. Its cooler in here but it reeks of piss. Matt thinks he doesn’t even want to step around and risk getting his shoes dirty but he did come here for a reason. He leans his cane against the wall in front of him. He promptly leans his hand against the wall, then his head against his arm while he takes care of business. His mind wanders back to a night a number of years ago when he’d gotten so drunk he’d peed on his own shoes. Even in retrospect he should be horrified, but for no reason beyond the fact that he laughs too easily when he’s had too much to drink, the memory amuses him. Hasn’t thought of that night of school drinking in years and most certainly hasn’t peed on his own shoes again. Ever. But along with the hazy memory of defiling his own foot wear he remembers the warmth of Foggy being with him, looking after him. Its been a long few months as he’s watched his friend struggle to accept learning about the changes in his life and he thinks maybe tonight is Foggy’s way of making peace with him. He certainly hopes so.

After washing up Matt makes his way back to their table, warmed by the thoughts of (partial?) acceptance from his friend. His cane finds his chair before Matt does but he can’t tell which way its angled. Was it in the position he left it or had it been shifted? The damned thing had arms so he couldn’t just drop and hope for the best. This shouldn’t be that difficult he thinks while carefully lowering himself into the seat. But instead of feeling frustrated he wants to laugh at himself, at the situation, at the absurdity that a simple chair is getting the better of him. 

Karen pats his arm when she gets up and for a moment he is totally fixated on her. She smells good, her skin is so soft and her voice is so soothing. He follows her as she heads towards the bar, listening to her soft heartbeat, smelling her shampoo over everything else that surrounds him in the chaotic bar. His thoughts are turning decidedly inappropriate when Foggy asks how he’s doing for the umpteenth time today. Matt shoves down his impure thoughts and turns to face Foggy. He replays the question over in his head, reminds himself his friend’s concern is, for the moment, not about how he lives his life but the fact that everything is slanting a bit off kilter. Or maybe that just his body Matt realizes and uses the table to pull himself more upright. He thinks. 

“M’ good,” he says, smiling. “Thanks Foggy.” He hopes Foggy believes him because for the first time in a long time it feels like the truth. He’s not listening for anything beyond this table anymore. His friends are with him and, despite the fact that he wholeheartedly believes Hell’s Kitchen is quickly sliding into its namesake, Matt realizes he actually does feel okay. 

“See I told you you just needed a night off.” Foggy sounds happy which makes Matt smile. He’s not sure if Foggy’s happy that Matt is finally enjoying himself or just pleased his plan worked but Matt couldn’t care less – he’s just happy to be with his friend right now.

………………

Last call catches Matt by surprise. A few things have actually. Matt really had taken all the focus and concentration he had left and put it into his two friends at the table. He’d chatted and laughed and it hadn’t been hard. He was counting on them to warn him of danger because right now his senses were a total mess. If he didn’t focus on Foggy and Karen he’d have been overwhelmed. There was just so, so much sensory information coming in but whatever part of his brain usually helpfully integrated all these things into useful perceptual cognition had completely and totally shit the bed. It wasn’t a World on Fire tonight, it was embers at best. It was dim what he could make out and terribly disjointed. If Foggy wasn’t with him Matt would be scared. He wanted to say that out loud, it seemed like something he should tell Foggy, like it was important, but knew somehow even without opening his mouth it wouldn’t come out right. True to form, the emotions burbled out of him as an inarticulate low laugh. 

Before he could even figure what was going on he found himself being marched to the washroom, Foggy behind him guiding him with insistent hands on his shoulders. As soon as they passed the swinging doors Matt realized he really need to go and was infinitely thankful for Foggy taking the time to steer him to the right spot. He leaned heavily against the wall with one hand, trying mostly unsuccessfully to get the world to stop shifting and spinning around him. It was bad enough he couldn’t figure where he was in relation to the walls, the sinks, the door. That was damned disorienting. But the swooping loops he felt the world taking around his stationary form were dizzying. 

Foggy was saying something about a cab, Matt couldn’t seem to follow the words so he just chuckles softly, leans more heavily on the wall in front of him.

“Hey, do not pee on your shoes,” Foggy warns him as he walks by, gentle clap on the shoulder. “I’m serious, those are your work shoes buddy.”

Sober Matt would be mortified that that one stupid, youthful incident is being dredged up to embarrass him yet again. Drunk Matt thinks its hilarious. And he’s oddly touched. He tries to nudge Foggy when he sides up to him at the sink. Its comes off more as an uncoordinated bump. He was trying to literally push those good feeling onto his friend somehow and maybe that wasn’t the most effective way. He swallows a laugh at himself and his ineptitude while he fumbles with the taps.

“So, today went well. Tonight was good, right?”

Well it was good right now but it hadn’t been a great day to start off with. The evening had turned out well enough but Matt had really struggled to tune out the streets beyond the bar for the first hour or two. And he knows come tomorrow he’d probably regret neglecting his duties to indulge himself with his friends. It was a lot to verbalize so he settled for, “Yeah. Yeah, it wassss good.” He’s not really surprised to hear the slur in his voice. But he thinks it came out clearly enough. Six hours ago he’d been his best, most eloquent self in court, commanding everyone’s attention. Now he was struggling to put together full sentences. Thank God nobody from court was at the bar tonight. At least he didn’t think they were. Matt had retained just enough self awareness to know he didn’t really want to be seen and recognized tonight. So yeah, pretty much like every other night then. Except he was usually bouncing over rooftops and breaking noses not failing at standing straight. He was startled but thankful when Foggy grabbed him by the lapels to steady him.   
For a moment the world stopped its shifting and held still. 

…………………….

They say goodnight to Karen and Matt feels better knowing she has a cab home. He doesn’t like worrying about where she is and how she gets around but he does. All. The. Time. It’s a dangerous city and he hates the thought of her going out alone at night. Or at all. 

Foggy’s asking him something but he has no idea what. He wasn’t listening. Or maybe he was but not to Foggy. He’s not sure.

“Can you walk home?” Matt hopes Foggy isn’t about to leave him, hop into a cab and vanish leaving Matt to get himself home. Of course he could get himself home. Probably. If somebody pointed him in the right direction. And gave him his cane cause he might actually need it to get from here to his apartment tonight. But he really doesn’t want to test it doing it all himself right now.

“Yeah, let’sss walk,” he says hoping Foggy comes with him. He feels Foggy nudge his arm and happily takes the proffered elbow. He wonders where his cane went to.

“I’ve got it here,” Foggy tells him, somehow miraculously answering his internal question. Maybe he said it out loud, he’s not sure. Walking around is not helping him sober up at all. In fact he’s pretty sure he’s more drunk now than in the bar. It’s a fairly quiet street at this time of night with a limited number of pedestrians and even fewer cars. That’s very helpful cause Matt can’t keep track of where things are and the less moving objects around them the better. He’s still overwhelmed by all the sensory input he’s getting even if his liquor soaked brain can’t form that input into useful data. Matt’s aware he’s practically hanging off Foggy’s side but doesn’t care. The familiar warmth against him helps keep the world from spinning too much. Or maybe it just makes it so he doesn’t care. He wonders idly where his cane has gone off to.  
“Still got it. You want to use it?” Foggy asks. “I thought you didn’t even really need it.”

Need, no. But it did help at times. There was both a sense of familiarity and a practical aspect to it. Its not easy to explain.

“Helps,” he says succinctly, hopes Foggy doesn’t question it further. They stop walking for a moment while Foggy unfolds the cane and hands it over to Matt. 

“How does it help, Matt?” Foggy asks, sounding genuinely curious.

Matt struggles for a few minutes to form an appropriate response. “Easier, don’ need to concentrate so musssh.” This entire day had been a struggle for concentration, to focus to keep pushing forward. 

“You don’t need to concentrate on anything but putting one foot in front of the other, Buddy.” 

Matt laughs but for the first time this evening its not with any feeling of positivity or happiness. If only it were that simple. Matt needs to concentrate on a million things all the time. Like All. The. Time. World on Fire doesn’t magically create itself – he has to keep stoking the flames to keep it going. Letting in some information, blocking out extraneous stuff, he’s had over twenty years experience doing this but its not exactly a passive process. There is no way in a million years Matt could adequately explain to his friend how much mental energy he exerts every day just functioning. It’s easier as Daredevil. The adrenaline helps him focus and filter. Moving quickly seems to help the process. It’s more difficult at normal pace and it’s damned near impossible with half of Josie’s bar sloshing around in his stomach. 

“I’ll concentrate for the both of us.”

It’s the best offer Matt has heard in awhile. And from pretty much the only person he trusts to do it and keep his word. Matt lets the last of his focus slid away on whiskey trails. He dimly realizes he’s dropped his cane, stopped all forward momentum. He grabs Foggy into a tight hug, willing his friend to understand, can’t get the words out in the right order, isn’t sure what he’s saying. Apparently part of his concentration was keeping himself from running amok. He suddenly remembers how tired he is and he’s pretty sure it has nothing to do with a lack of sleep and everything to do with white knuckling his way through life, holding tight as he can, trying not to let anything slip past his perception. Its all exhausting suddenly and he wants nothing more than to shift just a bit of the burden off himself and onto his friend. He should feel guilty but he doesn’t. He just feels so damned relieved Foggy’s helping him.

“Okay Matt, I got this. I’m gonna get us home,” he hears Foggy say. Matt just holds tightly to his friend as the world dims and swoops around him. He holds tight to his anchor and feel Foggy rub a hand up and down his back soothingly.

…………………………..

Matt blanks out for a bit. Thinks he had a conversation about hotdogs? Fingers? He’s not sure. All he knows is he’s leaning heavily against Foggy and they aren’t home yet. His cane scrapes a soothing sound along the pavement where he pushes it in front of him.

Further up the block Matt catches hold of the sound of something. Person in trouble? He’s not sure but finds himself staggering down an alley in pursuit until he loses the sounds again. For a moment he’s heartbroken when the sound is lost to the quiet din he’s been trying to ignore. One more lost soul swallowed up in hell. Foggy says something and he’s laughing again but it doesn’t feel good. Its tastes like he’s going to regret it come morning. He wonders where his cane has gotten to.

Matt doesn’t really remember much of the rest of the walk home. He sort of comes back to himself when he falls forward on his stairs, hand shooting out awkwardly to catch on a step. He wants to crawl up them but stops himself, remembers he still has some shred of dignity left. Finally they’re at his door and rather than make Matt locate for his keys Foggy just sneaks a hand onto his pocket and fishes them out. Matt stumbles his way into his apartment and flops onto his couch which is thankfully exactly where it should be in relation to the door. He takes off his glasses, fumbling and dropping them on the floor. It takes two tries to snatch them up and lightly toss them onto the table. The tie is next but his numb fingers are struggling to loosen it. It should just slip off easily, he’d loosened it hours ago. At the bar he’d wanted to lose his tie and jacket but he’d remembered they had to stay on. Can’t recall why but it had been important at the time. Now he’s home and the jacket has got to go. But it fights him.

“You want a hand?” Foggy asks at just the right moment. He had reappeared (when did he go?) at exactly the right moment and Matt suddenly has the distinct feeling Foggy has been saving him all day.

“Yes,” he says, immediately thankful for the help, definitely not caring that he should be able to accomplish this on his own.

“Oh shit! Matt what happened? There’s blood on you? Did you get hurt last night?”

Did he? He thought they had made it safely home from the bar. No, that was tonight. Matt runs his fingers over the dried, stiff material at his side. 

“Oh yeah, forgot, doesn’t hurt now,” he says all in a rush. And it’s the truth. He’s so anestetized by liquor he really can’t sense the wounds. Funny, they’d felt so raw this morning. 

“Jeez Matt. Take your shirt off, I want to see if you’re still bleeding,” Foggy says, sounding a bit upset. Matt tries to undo the buttons but they’re so small and slippery and his fingers are not working together the way they should. He doesn’t mind when Foggy brushes away his hands and takes over the task. 

“Stay here,” Foggy tells him. Matt thinks he has zero intentions of going anywhere right now, and he’s not sure why Foggy sounds upset. When Foggy comes back Matt tells him he couldn’t take his jacket off.

“Yeah we got it off,” Foggy confirms absently. He doesn’t understand what Matt’s trying to tell him.

“All day. Had to keep it on ALL DAY,” he tries to explain.

“The bleeding happened this morning?”

“Yeah,” he confirms. Thinks he adds a head nod to back himself up.

Foggy’s hesitating over something but Matt’s not sure what exactly. He struggles to figure it out and finally faintly smells laundry detergent that’s been wet, makes a surprisingly accurate guess that Foggy’s gotten him a cloth to deal with the dried blood. It feels itchy now that he’s more aware of it and Matt holds out a hand expectantly. His mind is starting to sober up but his body is still heavily impaired. He tries to clean himself off but keeps brushing over the cuts rather than around them. It doesn’t hurt exactly but it doesn’t feel good either. He hadn’t been aware of how many tiny adhesive strips were holding him together, had been more focused on the cuts that had needed stitches until he drags the cloth over them, dislodging as he goes. He feels Foggy gently take the cloth from his grip and take over, being far slower and more careful than he had been with himself.  
“Lean back, I got this.”

Foggy has literally helped clean puke off him before, years ago, when he got too wasted. This is not exactly the most awkward thing they’ve ever done. But its been a long time since Foggy was this close and gentle with him. Matts been all grown up for a long time now and days of getting shitfaced and barfing on himself are in his distant early twenties. His brain hiccoughs and he asks where his cane is. 

“Its by the door where it belongs,” Foggy replies. Matts not sure but thinks there might be a trace of irritation in his friend’s voice. 

“Okay,” he says, deciding to drop the subject, really not wanting to piss off Foggy.

“Does this hurt?” Foggy asks him. It doesn’t and Matt thinks he may have said as much but he’s not sure. 

“Not now. Claire said to leave them be and to not stretch them for a few days,” He pauses to yawn. “If I pop them she says I have to re-stitch them myself,” he finishes, remembering Claire’s half threat.

“Okay, well I don’t want to see that so let’s make sure they don’t pop. I’ve seen your attempts at handwriting, let me tell you there is no way you could manage something is small and exact.”

Matt knows he’s good at giving stitches. Maybe not as good as someone with sight but his fingers are very, very sensitive and he’s done it enough times to be somewhat skilled at it. Despite what his fumbling hands are doing tonight he knows he can handle the small details of stitching just fine, thank you very much. “You’d be surprised,” he says but doesn’t feel the need to explain any further.

He leans forward when Foggy wants to check his back then flops back against his sofa afterwards.

“You want me to order pizza?” Foggy asks. Matt goes to refuse but Foggy adds, “Cause we both know if you don’t eat before laying down you’re definitely going to puke.” 

He’s right. Damn Foggy and his infallible logic. Matt waves his hand in a way he hopes shows agreement. Really he just wants to go to sleep now. The tiredness is creeping back in and he’d like to pass out for the night but Foggy is insistent Matt stay up for food. He’s equally insistent he chugs a couple glasses of water. He warns Foggy when the pizza gets to their floor, catches a whiff of the food and the clunky steps of the delivery driver. He eats on autopilot and is barely aware when he’s shifted from sitting up to laying down. 

“Bedtime,” Foggy announces and Matt’s pretty sure that’s unnecessary given that he’s already lying down where he plans to stay for the night.

“Okay Foggy,” he says sleepily. He’s oddly saddened his friend is probably going to leave now. Its silly cause he’s about to fall asleep so why should he care if Foggy’s is here or not? It worries him all the same. “You going home?” he asks.

“Hell no, I’m crashing in your comfy bed.” Good. Matt knows he shouldn’t but he has one more favour to ask of his friend. “If you’re gonna stay could you keep concentrating for the both of us?”

“Sure buddy, I got this,” Foggy reassures him. Matt closes his eyes and is only dimly aware of Foggy doing something in his kitchen and the sounds of glasses moving. It all blurs together and quiets as he falls asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Its Monday and its not going to be pleasant...

By Monday morning Matt’s feeling more himself again. Saturday was a wash as he was hung over. All he did was try to ignore both his headache and the increasingly persistent toothache he’d been denying for a few days.  
Sunday he’d gone to church and not the skulking around for private confession with father Lantom but actually honest to goodness Sunday service, singing and all. He’d followed that by hitting Fogwell’s. He’s not sure it helped any but he knows his stitches are healing well, the frayed ends of both his skin and his nerves have smoothed out. He’s slept, has not gone out as Daredevil since Thursday night and has lived solely as Matt Murdock since then. Its more of a break that he deserves and definitely not what the good residents of Hell’s Kitchen needed but he swallows down the guilt by reminding himself he’ll head out tonight early. 

But first, the day job. 

Matt arrives at the office with a full load of patience and tells himself also a good attitude. So long as today goes smoothly he’ll be fine. He silently sends up a quick prayer that the universe not send him any extra problems. And if it’s not too much trouble could the toothache please knock off, he has things to concentrate on. Amen.

Within the hour Matt’s quite sure God’s not listening to him or his Devil (or because of it?) since exactly nothing has gone right. 

Karen accidentally spilled coffee on his sleeve. Not huge deal but he’s forced to hide the stain under his jacket. And he’s absolutely sure there’s a stain. He can smell it and despite both his friends’ assurances its not noticeable Matt is most definitely not walking around with visible stains on his shirt. Whatever, fine, its far from the first time he’s hidden behind a suit, black, red or otherwise. 

He’s got his laptop and peripherals set up in their “conference room” and has started reviewing the document, fingers absorbing and translating quickly when he stops, shifts back a few words. “… was then observed to update, update, update…” Lovely. Software update in the middle of the morning. He knows for a fact these updates are supposed to happen overnight to avoid breaks in service like this. He really wishes his programs would still work offline but some genius removed that function during the last update. He does not have time for this today. Karen had broken the bad news just an hour ago about a scheduling mix up to the courthouse. Now they’re cramming like its finals at school. This level of fuckery should not be happening in a big city. Or anywhere really. His only consolation is he thinks the prosecution is likely scrambling as well given that they know an extension or dismissal is not going to happen. Of course the prosecution has an army of paralegals working for them so their burden is quite a bit less than it is for their team of three.

“TOSS THE COMPUTER,” an internal voice says to him. “ITS GARBAGE AND YOU KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH GARBAGE.”

Okay, that was weird. Matt’s very aware of the sound of his own voice. He records his notes orally so he’s heard his own disembodied voice plenty over the years. This came from inside his own head but was not like the normal running monologue he’s accustomed to. It was like clear words being said aloud and the dark, gravelly tone sounded a hell of a lot more like Daredevil than it did like Matt Murdock.  
Matt swallows down the impulse he feels to chuck his computer out the door at the voice’s suggestion. He didn’t mean to bring his Devil with him to his day job and shoves it deep down inside, back in its box. He knows exactly how expensive his equipment is so there’s zero percent chance he’d throw it around out of frustration. He can’t deny the impulse is there though. It’s just he’s never heard a disembodied voice in his head like that before. Ever.

He takes a deep breath and reminds himself he’s definitely not going to let this week devolve into the train wreck last week was. He shouldn’t need Foggy to get him loaded to get reset back to functional. Letting out the breath he feels the mostly healed stitches in his side scrape unpleasantly against his shirt. He’d woken up resolved that he was going to have a good week, one where keeps his two “jobs” as far away from each other as he can manage. Tossing office equipment is a definite no no matter what the Devil on his shoulder (in his head?) tells him to do.

He briefly explains the problem to Foggy and Karen being careful to not let his frustration show. He’s pretty sure he’s succeeding at being professional and in control. Mostly sure, anyway. Karen confirms they were sent transcribed copies of the documents and grabs them for Matt. She pops them onto the table in front of his and they sound too loud, too heavy. 

“Uh just the current year ones,” he specifies and adds, “please.”

“Yup, that’s them. Or well, January to March actually ” Karen specifies.

No. Just no. Matt has a sneaking suspicion he’s not going to like this cause he’s pretty sure he knows why its such a ridiculously thick stack of paperwork. He skims over the first page. Fuck. It’s not contracted. Why now, why today? Even going his fastest he not going to be able to get through this in time. 

“YOU SHOULD FIND THEM. TEACH THEM A LESSON. THEY’RE INSULTING YOU, TELLING YOU YOU’RE AN IDIOT!” says the voice. Its really kind of disconcerting to hear himself (sort of but not?) so clearly in his mind.   
He chokes down murderous thoughts against the scribe responsible. Its rarely a problem. At his level of work there’s just an assumption anybody reading briefs and reports is going to be more than able to handle contracted braille. Its not the first time he’s been handed this elementary school shit but thankfully it’s a rarity. He signs and starts the tedious task. He scrubs the cells out of spite. Its juvenile and totally unnecessary but he’s feeling petty and knows there’s limited time for this. He doesn’t think he’s making any kind of fuss outside his head but Karen suddenly blurts out there’s a regular print copy attached. Small mercies. 

“I’m done with these,” she says, pushing the documents she’d been reviewing aside. Matt hears the lie but considers Karen competent enough to decide how thoroughly to go through her sections. “Do you mind if I read these out loud?” she asks. “So I can think them through better?”

“Please,” Matt says feeling relieved. Karen is getting better and better at both her job and, more specifically, anticipating what Matt needs. Maybe she’s taking cues from Foggy. Matt’s not sure but he appreciates not having to ask. Her voice is very soothing as she reads the documents out to him and Foggy. He knows this is not the most efficient way for them to get their respective work done but decides he doesn’t care right now. He melts into her quickly spoken words and considers asking her to read out all his paperwork from now on so he can absorb it passively rather than his usual style of hunching over his desk rampaging through the words as fast as he can. Feeling his blood pressure inch down, Matt leans back in his chair, listening and absorbing. He pushes down the impulse to check his watch because he doesn’t need to remind himself again that they have less than three hours to finish up.

Apparently his Devil voice likes listening to Karen too because it is blessedly silent for the moment. He rubs at his jaw wishing his toothache was as easily mollified.

…………………….

“Why are there drinking glasses on my floor?” Matt asks him over the phone. Its Sunday afternoon and Foggy’s loafing on his couch in front of the tv with intentions to accomplish exactly jack today. 

“Matt trap,” he says, and decides not to justify it further stealing Matt’s recent style of short answers that barely explain anything. Two can play at that game. “Or maybe it was a Devil’s trap. I’m not sure because I didn’t catch anything.” ‘Thankfully,’ he adds in his head. He’d given it 50/50 odds that Matt was going to gravitate to the suit, drunk or not that night. He was pleasantly surprised when he woke up Saturday in the late morning to find his warning system of glasses was undisturbed and Matt was still dead asleep on the couch. 

“You sound better,” he tells Matt. And its true, Matt sounds more calm and focused and a lot less stressed than he has in a few days, if perplexed by the glasses he’d apparently just noticed.

“Yeah, well, I am,” Matt confirms. That’s the extent to which Matt is going to acknowledge he was most definitely not fine last week.

Foggy’s glad to hear it. Decides liquoring up Matt on Friday was the right decision after all. “Staying in tonight or you have to … work?” Foggy’s still struggling with the right terms to describe Matt’s extra circular activates. What to call it, how to broach it, when NOT to even bother bringing it up. Yeah, Foggy’s still working on wrapping his head around the whole shebang. 

“Haven’t decided,” Matt says. Foggy knows this means no. Matt hesitates over not doing things but when he makes his mind up its pretty hard to change. Foggy can’t help but feel relieved Matt is staying in tonight.

When Matt blows in Monday morning he’s clearly wired. Some kind of weird nervous energy bleeds off him even before Karen warns him of the mess up at court. He’s outwardly cheerful but trying just a bit too hard. A few months ago Foggy would just chock it up to his friend being excited to get to work. Matt does love his job. But Foggy is watching him much more closely these days. He’s seeing more and more cracks around the edges of Matt than before. He hadn’t been looking for them in the past but he’s confident this is new. Like Daredevil new.

Matt barely twitches at the news they’re suddenly at a disadvantage today and will be scrambling. He makes short order of setting up his laptop and all its accompanying devices. He’s hell bent on getting prepared. And really, if that weird manic energy can be channeled properly they might just be successful today. In his haste to get set up Matt and Karen bump arms on the table. Its hard to tell who’s at fault but it ends in Matt’s sleeve being soaked in coffee. 

“It’s okay Karen,” Matt says softly, using a cloth to only semi successfully dry his wet sleeve.

“Did it burn you?” she asks worriedly.

Matt chuckles lightly. “No, no. Just wet is all,” he reassures her, flashes a small smile. “But does it show?” he asks, holding out the damp sleeve for her and Foggy to inspect.

It might but they’d rather not tell him. A silent exchange of looks between himself and Karen precedes them both reassuring Matt its fine. He thanks them politely and excuses himself from the room, returning a moment later with his suit jacket on. A damp sleeve is not going to dry as well stuffed in there and surely Matt knows it. But heaven forbid there’s a hair out of place during working hours. Foggy thinks of the rumpled mess Matt had become by the end of the night last Friday. Matt can barely pass as the same person when he’s focused on work. He’d accuse the man of vanity but given that Matt can’t see himself (and when Foggy had recently asked, Matt had indeed confirmed he had no clear idea what he looks like past his nine year old reflection) Foggy attributes it to the man needing to exude professionalism. Foggy tucks his long hair behind his ear self consciously and decides to leave it at that.

They work in silence for a few minutes. Foggy keeps sneaking glances at Matt but sees nothing amiss for the moment. He returns to his own computer until he hears a huff of irritation across the table. Matt’s scowling behind his glasses. The veneer of calm and cool professional is slowly wearing off. It’s only ten am on a Monday morning. Foggy is sure his partner is in for a long week.

“Update,” Matt announces, gesturing towards his computer, disgust clear in his tone.

“Aww, really? At 10 am? Isn’t that supposed to happen at night?”

“Yes, its SUPPOSED to,” Matt says with a sigh, scrubs at his jaw. He pushes the computer away from himself a few inches. Foggy gets the distinct impression Matt wants to chuck the computer as far away from himself as possible but Matt’s nothing if not controlled. During the day anyway.

“Karen did we order these as transcripts?”

“We did,” she says, getting up to retrieve the documents.

Foggy notices the huge arm load of braille sheets. Matt’s a fast reader but that looks like more than the usual amount by a lot. Matt notices too. 

“Uh, just the current year ones. Please.”

“Yup, that’s them. Or well, that’s January to March actually,” she says.

He watches Matt slowly reaches for the first sheet. And even more slowly runs his fingers over it, scowl doubling and most definitely not hidden behind his shades. The moment drags and there’s silent tension in the room all emanating from Matt’s side of the table. Karen notices but says nothing, just shoots Foggy a pleading look. Foggy whips out his phone and silent texts her: PLEASE TELL ME YOU HAVE A PRINT COPY. HE’S ABOUT TO LOSE HIS SHIT.

Karen reads his text silently. She smiles brightly at Foggy’s line of thinking.

“There’s a print copy, too,” she says seemingly out of the blue. “I’m done with these,” she announces, pushing her pile aside. Foggy notes she was only half way through. “Do you mind if I read these out loud?” Clever and a good save. Foggy is impressed. She justifies and turns the action towards herself, “So I can think them through better.”

Matt breaths an audible sigh of relief at not having to ask. “Please,” he says, sounding infinitely grateful.

Foggy stops his reading and listens as Karen quickly starts reading through the paperwork. It would be hard to concentrate with her reading aloud. He thinks maybe they’ll find what they’re looking for in this anyway. He surreptitiously watches Matt, sees the tension drain out of him quickly. He watches as Matt rubs at his jaw absentmindedly. Foggy realizes he’s seen that same gesture several times this morning. He’d just assume Matt was nursing a hit from his nightly activities but as far as he knows his friend hasn’t been out since Thursday night. There’s no visible bruise and its not one of Matt’s regular ticks, and after all these years Foggy knows all of them. He files this away for further consideration.

……………………………

Foggy likes watching Matt in court. Its great to watch someone excel at their job, particularly when their job is also your job. Matt is commanding, argumentative and not at all soft spoken once he enters a courtroom. Foggy listens as Matt pleads, argues, and objects his way through the proceedings somehow managing to wrangle a dismissal out of judge which had not even appeared to be a possibility this morning. Karen and Foggy really set him up well and Matt knocks them down. It’s a good performance and Foggy wants to high five his friend at their success but holds back because A) its not professional and B) hard to explain a blind man in court returning his high five accurately.

“Prosecution is pissed,” Foggy tells him as they gather up their things while the back of the courtroom empties. “You’re getting some serious hairy eyeballs.”

“I can tell,” Matt says, beaming. Matt’s not exactly competitive but he sure does like to win when he knows he’s right. “Dinner?”

“Yes, definitely. I’m starving.” He’s know Matt must be too because they skipped lunch and lawyering is hungry work.

Matt whips out his cane deftly and leads the way.

……………..

They meet up with Karen for dinner. Foggy is pleased Matt seems happy and less stressed than this morning. This isn’t fake happy or polite professionalism either. This is his best friend genuinely pleased. He wonders if Matt gets this kind of satisfaction as Daredevil and wishes lawyering was enough. He wants to say as much but now is not the time to start beating a dead horse and bring down the mood. Matt’s still rubbing at his jaw, more frequently now and its getting to be noticeable. 

After a round of celebratory beers Matt surprises Foggy by ordering lasagne for dinner. Mat never, ever eats messy food in public. Period. This has been static since day one of their friendship. Also, Matt almost never touches empty carbs. He doesn’t explicitly say it but Foggy has a good feel for what Matt’s going to order most meals and tasty carbs are generally not on the menu. Nobody gets abs like Matt’s by eating garbage food.  
Matt’s carefully demolishing his meal with gusto until he suddenly yelps, and jerks in his seat. It surprises all three of them.  
“You okay?” he asks Matt, not sure what’s going on. 

Matt gulp swallows and reassures him its fine, rubbing at his jaw for the umpteenth time today. Yeah, something’s going on there for sure. Matt does not eat anymore of his food after that but its okay since he was mostly done anyway. Foggy notices that while Matt has succeeded in not making any mess over dinner, he himself has a good sized spot of sauce spilled on his own tie. Its mostly blends into the dark pattern so he shrugs it off.   
Foggy suggests drinks at Josie’s and is not at all surprised when Matt turns him down, saying he has something to do. Foggy know exactly what Matt’s not explicitly saying and he has the urge to grab his friend by the lapels and shake some sense into him. There’s a hardness in Matt’s expression that tells him it would be completely useless, his mind is made up.

………………..

Matt loves the rush he gets when he moves lightening quickly across the rooftops. He likes things flashing by him so quickly its almost a blur. He missed this and wonders why he took a few days off. Adrenaline pumping, body working hard it feels almost indistinguishable from kicking ass and taking names in court today. And it would be damned near perfect if this toothache would just settle down. He’s pretty sure its been there since Thursday, suspects a tooth might have been cracked that night from a blow. Its definitely not from the grinding of his teeth that’s been going on lately. Well, hopefully, not anyway. The pain comes and goes and Matt is a master at ignoring and working through pain. But damned if it isn’t making him feel ever so slightly off balance. He’s still moving full tilt but there’s this slight nagging sensation that all is not right. Pausing in his travels he feels the jagged tooth with his tongue. Seriously, who breaks a tooth on lasagna anyway? The whole point in ordering that was to avoid jarring that damned tooth. He’d been hopeful this was a problem that would resolve itself but the rough edge and missing chunk of his molar tells him its definitely not going to magically heal itself. It was probably just a matter of time given how many hits to the face he takes. Eventually one was going to cause a problem. The voice he’d been hearing off and on all day is silent right now, but really, what would be the need. Devil’s in control right now anyway. He forces his tongue to stop poking the painful, broken tooth and get back to the work at hand. There’s an angry Devil inside him that he’s been pushing down all day and deep inside there’s some rage left over from this morning that’s dying to come out through his fists. Oh somebody’s definitely getting hospitalized tonight he thinks evilly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heard that tooth pain can result I temporary psychosis. Not sure how true it is but I've wanted to play with that in fic for ages...

“Holy Shit!” Karen says loudly, a hand going up to cover her mouth as if she can stop the words that have already slipped out. “Sorry. But Matt that looks really, really bad.”

“I know,” he says, looking absolutely miserable. Foggy looks at him and is just sorry that Matt’s Tuesday is not starting out any better than his Monday did.

“That is totally infected, Matt,” he informs his friend. Matt’s face is swollen on one side in a way that, for once, has nothing to do with being hit. It happened to Foggy once years ago and he recognizes it for the abscessed tooth it is. “You need to get that checked out like yesterday. That’s definitely infected.”

Matt hesitates, lingering in the doorway to the office, hands gripping and grinding the handle of his cane compulsively. Foggy thinks back to the headline on this morning’s paper that accompanies grainy picture of Daredevil. It said, “The man without fear.” Yeah. Right. Foggy thinks. If you only knew.

……………………..

Karen’s asked three times and Matt keeps saying he’ll get to calling for an appointment and no, he doesn’t need her to call on his behalf, thanks. Foggy is fully aware that Matt has no intention of dealing with this today. Apparently he’s just going to hide in his office look miserable and not use the phone. Matt’s been an adult for quite some years now and he still can’t make a dental appointment, Foggy thinks. How is this the same man who commands an entire courtroom? Who takes down Hell’s Kitchen’s worst criminals? Matt does not look even remotely threatening slouched at his desk pretending to work. He watches as a hand tentatively floats up to rub at his jaw then quickly disappears back to the desk in front of him apparently thinking better of the move. They’re not due in court today, or at all this week thankfully and despite what Matt might believe this isn’t an injury he can hide. Foggy heads back to his office, closes the door, for all the good that will do if Matt’s actively listening, and pulls out his phone to make a call to his own dentist. He’s mostly sure Matt would step in and do the same for him were the rolls reversed.  
………………….

Matt’s leg bounces up and down as he sits with Foggy in the dentist’s waiting room two hours later. Its already intolerable. It smells weird, he can hear a drill whirring in a high pitch on the other side of the wall. He’s sure that anything drilling into his teeth will be unbearable and really, really hopes it doesn’t come to that. How in the hell had Foggy even convinced his to come here anyway? Damn his friend and his easy persuasiveness. And that strange growling voice that’s in his head but feels like its coming from outside his head? Yeah, now that’s just a constant running pile of word vomit and suggested violence. 

“SHE’S IN ON IT!” his devil insists, referring to the grandmotherly receptionist going through Matt’s paperwork. Apparently everyone is in on it though because his Devil has been issuing warnings and trying to direct him to take out almost every single person they’re come in contact with since leaving the office. It’s spinning wild stories and accusations at random strangers. “HE BEATS HIS WIFE! YOU NEED TO RETURN THE FAVOUR … THAT ONE JUST STOLE FROM THE JEWELRY SHOP DOWN THE STREET. BREAK HIS JAW!” Oddly, his Devil see’s no need to prove himself, gives absolutely no evidence to back up his claims. But it leaves Matt unsure if his Devil voice might be right, that maybe “they” are sensing these things somehow that he’s not consciously aware of how. Its confusing and Matt feels completely turned around and there’s no space in his head to think with the voice constantly goading him to take people out. He comes very close to shouting a reply out loud in the back of the taxi but the last thing he needs is Foggy to suspect this tooth has apparently rotted his brain.

The receptionist finishes assembling his paperwork. When he has to sign his name he adds U.D. at the end cause surely he’s doing this under duress. Still, he’s pretty sure Foggy would not be amused so he scratches the last part out as best he can tell.

“They seem busy,” he says despite the fact the he and Foggy are the only people now seated in the waiting room. “Maybe we should come back another day.” He makes to get up, feels Foggy gently push down on his shoulder. 

“They have time for you, you have an emergency appointment. This problem isn’t going to go away by you ignoring it, I promise you that,” Foggy says with infinite patience. In an even softer tone he adds, “You’re being a bit ridiculous.”

Matt has studiously avoided the dentist for at least a good decade and isn’t entirely willing to break that record. He’s fastidious about brushing and flossing for this very reason – so he can avoid coming here. Its not a hospital or even a doctor’s office but it give him to same level of heebee jeebees nevertheless. And yes, he gets that he’s being more than a bit ridiculous as Foggy has gently pointed out but it’s a guttural fear, not an intellectually based one. Foggy’s hand on his shoulder gently pushing him back into his seat is the one and only thing keeping him here. Well that and his friend’s clear logic about the situation. Matt knows Foggy’s right, he’s got to deal with this whether he wants to or not. And right now he most definitely does not.

“ONCE THAT DENTIST LOOKS IN YOUR MOUTH HE’S GOING TO SEE CLEAN INTO YOUR HEAD. I’M GOING TO WAVE HI BEFORE I CHEW HIS FACE BLOODY…”

Matt shifts again to get up but Foggy quickly reaches over and gently presses down on Matt’s shoulder again, keeping him in his seat.

“Matt? Matt Murdock?” calls out the receptionist. Great. Its his turn. Matt very, very slowly gets to his feet, walking like a man going to the gallows.

“YOU CAN TAKE HER RIGHT HERE. PAINT THE WINDOWS WITH HER BLOOD…”

He’s so glad nobody else can hear this, feels like he should apologize to her for his thoughts, knows if anyone could hear him he’d be locked up for a mandatory 72 hour psych hold. He’s lived with the Devil in him as long as he can remember but not like this. There was never a voice before, it never felt like his head was crowded with someone else’s thoughts. And while Matt will admit to himself he is, at times, a violent guy, he isn’t this murderous. And he doesn’t plan to take people out without being good and damned sure they deserved it. 

As he’s about to go through the door leading to the exam rooms he hears Foggy step up behind him. He hadn’t expected his friend to follow him in and suspects Foggy hadn’t planned it either. Probably his stalling to go in had prompted Foggy to try to literally , if subtly, herd him in.

“DENTIST IS A PEDOPHILE. YOU GONNA JUST LET THAT SLIDE?”

“Why? Cause he smells like kids? Look around,” motioning in his mind to his Devil. “The guy fixes little kids’ teeth. Or course he smells like children and fear. You got something else to go on?” he challenges.

Matt had been more focused on his internal conversation than the dental appointment going on around him. He’d let Foggy do the talking for him too concerned with containing his murderous Devil to explain his situation beyond pointing at his terribly swollen face when the dentist had asked what brought him here today - as if it wasn’t obvious.

“And does this hurt?” asks the dentist as he does something to Matt’s tooth to make it change from a terrible ache to a stabbing pain.

Yes. 

“Open wide. Been hurting for awhile?” 

“Uh huh,” Matt confirms as best he can with his mouth cranked open. Why ask a question then expect him to answer like that? Something else gets poked in his mouth and Matt jerks his head in pain reflexively.

“HE’S ATTACKING US! FIGHT BACK!”

“Will you please shut up!” he begs his Devil mentally.

“Not hearing voices are you?” the dentist asks almost conversationally.

“Yes,” Matt confirms before he realizes the words have come out his mouth. “All. Damn. Day. He never shuts up.”

“Wait what? You’re hearing VOICES?” Foggy snaps from his perch on the window ledge. “You didn’t think to mention this before? I brought you to a dentist but you need a psychiatrist. Or maybe in exorcist!” Foggy’s winding himself up like this situation is somehow his fault.

And suddenly, for the first time in an hour the Devil has nothing to say. 

“Does this happen to you normally, Matt?” the dentist asks sounding way too serious and sincere. Matt feels trapped in the chair with its arms blocking an easy side exit and the dentist hovering over him.

“No, just today,” he says honestly. “And maybe yesterday.” He hears Foggy’s heartbeat start to slow down a bit.

“Matt, please don’t take this as a dig about your condition – the blindness I mean, but are you one of those guys who’d rather soldier through the pain? Is this maybe hurting more than you can handle but you don’t want to do anything about it?”

Its not more than he can handle. Its just wearing thin really quickly and bothering him in a way he’s not use to, not ready to handle. But the dentist is certainly right that he doesn’t want to deal with it. Doesn’t want to be in this chair a moment longer. He hopes the dentist understands his silence cause he can’t seem to get it into words.

“TAKE HIM NOW. YOU’VE GOT THE UPPER HAND!,” his Devil howls. Matt’s acutely aware he most definitely does not have the upper hand trapped in the dentist’s chair, scared enough he’s admitting to things he didn’t intend to. He just sighs, hangs his head in defeat.

“Okay boys,” the dentist says, getting up, snapping off his gloves and directing his instructions to both his patient and Foggy. “It’s not unheard of that tooth pain can cause some temporary psychosis. Can’t say I’ve ever run into a case I my practice before though.”

“Psychosis!?!” Foggy says panicking. 

At the same time Matt asks, hopefully, “Temporary?”

“FIND A SCALPLE, SLIT HIS THROAT!”

“I’m going to write you a script for painkiller and antibiotics. There’s too much swelling to do anything today, you’ll have to come back in a week or two. If those voices start saying anything you feel is threatening to you or to others safety I want you to head to the ER though. Got it?” 

Matt barks out a laugh at the same time as his Devil and gets a very weird stereo echo in his head.

“Next time we’ll talk about the way I can see you’ve been grinding you teeth. If that’s a stress thing I strongly suggest you start reconsidering what’s going on in your life.” The dentist turns to address Matt directly, “Its really important you take these. All of them, don’t stop just cause you start feeling better. Now if you don’t feel better, swelling doesn’t go down, voices don’t stop in 48 hours come back. And go straight to the ER if things worsen. Okay?”

“BREAK HIS HANDS – THEN HE’LL NEVER HURT ANOTHER PATIENT AGAIN!” the Devil suggests, not so helpfully.

Matt notices that the dentist gives the paper prescription to Foggy rather than himself. Either the dentist thinks he’s useless cause he’s blind and can’t be trusted to look after his own shit, which yeah, the fact he brought his friend into an appointment like a little kid has their parent with them kind would support that view. Or the dentist thinks he’s bat shit crazy. “OF COURSE YOU ARE!” says his Devil cheerfully. Either way he thanks the man and scrambles to get out of the exam room as quickly as possible leaving Foggy behind in his haste. 

…………………

Matt makes it almost half a block from the dentist’s office before Foggy catches up to him, having to jog a bit. 

“Hey, whoa,” he says grabbing Matt’s sleeve. “Are you trying to lose me?”

“S-sorry,” Matt says and sounds like he means it. “I had to get out of there.”

“Is that what the voices in your head told you to do?” he asks honestly. This is some weird shit. Like even for Matt its weird. Foggy feels distinctly unqualified for this. He’s taken exactly two psych classes in undergrad and did not get high marks either time.

“Voice,” Matt clarifies. He starts walking again but this time at a normal human pace, not like he was trying to outrun the dentist and his Devil.

Foggy thinks about things he’s heard about schizophrenics and people on drugs hearing voices. “Is it God you hear?”

Matt genuinely laughs at that. “Definitely not. It’s me, its my voice … in a way.”

“Well if its your voice then its you and its not a voice in your head, right?” Foggy struggles to apply some logic to this. 

Matt sniffs, struggles to put it into words. “It’s like my Devil is separate from me, but its with me, in my head. But not like before, its like another person, oh jeez, Foggy, this is hard to explain.”

“Well what’s ‘he’ (Matt can hear the air quotes) saying?”

“You really, really don’t want to know.”

“…AND BASH HIS HEAD INTO A FUCKING WALL TIL IT TURNS TO MUSH! AND THAT ONE ACROSS THE STREET – IF YOU RUN NOW YOU CAN STILL CATCH HIM. GIVE HIM WHAT HE DESERVES…”

“Is he talking about me?” Foggy asks a bit nervously, not wanting to know but needing to find out.

Matt stops walking, turns to face Foggy. “No,” he says, sounding a little surprised at his own answer. “He’s got no problem with you.”

“Whew! Thanks,” Foggy says as if its something Matt had a choice in. “That actually makes me feel a whole lot better. Not that any of this is okay. Just don’t want to be a target for any extra crazy, you know?”

They continue walking. “So why didn’t you tell me you were hearing voices- a voice,” he corrects himself. He tries to make it sound conversational but it just feels like another secret his friend has been hiding from him. It hurts more than a little that after all these years Matt still doesn’t trust him enough to tell him these things. Foggy knows if he woke up one day hearing a voice in his head that wasn’t there before his first call (if not to 911) would be to Matt. It hurts that this doesn’t seem to work in reverse.

………………………

“Oh no way,” Foggy says and snatches the beer out of Matt’s hand the moment before he gets his first sip. “You are not mixing alcohol with pills.”

Foggy suspects the main reason Matt made a bee line to his fridge for a drink was so he could use this as an excuse to delay taking the pills. Matt’s not stupid – he definitely has to know mixing this stuff is not safe. But he’s crafty enough to chug a beer and use it as an excuse to delay the inevitable.

“I’d almost forgotten about those,” Matt says flatly and Foggy is less than convinced. 

“I know you don’t want these but you do want your face to go back to your normal handsome self, right? And it would be nice to have a break from that toothache, huh?” he asks, watching Matt rub at his swollen jaw where the troublesome tooth lives. 

Matt sighs, rests his hands on the back of the chair at the table in front of him. It would appear he’s glaring at the little white paper baggy of drugs sitting on the middle of the table where Foggy had deposited them. “Foggy, I don’t like putting chemicals in my body,” Matt admits, a finger subconsciously going to rub at his eye behind his glasses.

“Okay, yeah, that’s pretty understandable given … your past,” Foggy isn’t sure how to phrase it and hopes he isn’t upsetting his friend. “But these are going to help you.”

“I can handle the pain,” Matt says, gearing up to excuse and avoid.

“I know you can. I’ve seen what you can get through, Matt. But maybe its just not bringing out the best in you. You’re hearing voices man – this is affecting you in a really not good way. And its kinda scaring me,” he admits.

“Fine,” Matt finally concedes with a deep sigh. 

“Thank you!” Foggy says and goes to grab a glass of water. Matt slumps down into his chair, leans his arms heavily against the tabletop. He does not like losing arguments and his posture screams that he feels he’s lost here.

Foggy shakes out the pills, Matt sighs again but tosses them back.

“I need to meditate for a bit Foggy.”

“Great idea,” Foggy says. Given its calming effect on Matt he thinks that’s about the best choice he’s made all day. “I’m going to hide in your bedroom, give you some space.”  
Matt nods, gets up and takes his position on the floor, tosses his glasses on the coffee table, legs crossing, eyes closing. Foggy grabs his phone and leaves Matt to it, comfortable in the knowledge his friend isn’t going anywhere or doing anything stupid.

But when he goes to check on Matt a half hour later he’s greeted by the sight of blood dripping down his face, fingers clawing madly at his eyes. He’s smiling maniacally and this morning Foggy would have sworn nothing could out do The Night of Nobu’s attack for sheer terror when it came to Matt. 

And he’s just been proven wrong.


	5. Chapter 5

Matt can’t explain to Foggy why he didn’t tell him about the voice. Foggy is still clearly uncomfortable about Daredevil being a part of Matt’s life and this, well this voice is like his Devil side on steroids. He can’t put that on his friend – Foggy shouldn’t have to deal with his current level of crazy. He would have, hell, he SHOULD have kept it to himself. He hopes stress/pain/infection is genuinely behind his little break from reality and not that this is some latent mental illness rearing its ugly head. 

The pharmacist is condescending when they stop by to get his prescription filled at a place near the dentist’s office. Blind equates with retarded to some people. His Devil curses and rages at the perceived insult while Matt tries to listen and nod appropriately to the pharmacist’s instructions and warnings, not listening properly to either voice.

And now that they’re back at his place and he can’t find another way to put this off. Foggy is being all kinds of reasonable and patient with his reluctance to take the meds.

“Foggy, I don’t like putting chemicals in my body,” he explains. His mind flashes to the last thing he ever saw, ever will see. Remembers the bright blue sky behind his father’s worried face as it dimmed and blacked out of his vision. Its been a long time and it seems like it shouldn’t hurt so sharply after all these years but the moment catches him, the loss. He wonders if he’ll lose anything else if he takes these pills.

“PHARMACIST, THE ONE I TOLD YOU DEALS DRUGS OUT THE BACKDOOR TOO, HE GAVE YOU POISON. YOU NEED TO GO BACK THERE AND…”

He needs the voice to stop. Its hard keeping track of his conversations with Foggy with the Devil ranting in the background. And his tooth really hurts. Its not the worst pain he’s felt, not by a long shot, but its wearing him down in a way wounds don’t.

He takes the pills, still feeling like it’s a bad idea. He really doesn’t want to experience them kick in and since beer is off the menu he tells Foggy he needs to meditate. Something has to distract him from the dread of the little pills dissolving into his system.

…………….

When Stick was training him he’d warned Matty to not poke at his eyes. Matt didn’t know how Stick could tell he was doing it but he always could. “Don’t do weird shit,” he barked at the boy, swatting him upside the head. Matty knew better but its was like if he poked hard enough he could get something, some kind of flicker of something from behind his eyes. The eyes were dead, most of his optic nerves too but something remained and despite what he told others he really missed seeing. It was like with a poke he’d get just a flash of something, somewhere in his head behind his eyes. Some tiny part of his brain still fired. The more Stick caught him the more they focused on perfecting his other senses and soon Matty was so absorbed in the massive amounts of information he was able to glean about the world he forgot about pursuing little flashes of light in his head – he had a whole world defined by flames around him.

But right now that world was distorted, muted. He’d been trying to focus and meditate for a few minutes now but it wasn’t happening. Feeling his senses muffle slowly should have helped him focus inwards but instead it left him reaching out trying to hear and feel without moving his position. He felt a bit dizzy with the effort required to pick out individual sounds and sensations. It was like being in an elevator, or maybe a tomb. Quiet surrounded him, the air ceased to move around his body. There wasn’t enough, he needed more information, not to be stuck in a dead room and a darkening world without end. Matt was only dimly aware he was poking at his eyes. And not at all aware that the frantic poking had quickly morphed to scratching. He saw vague flashes in my mind, there was something out there, in here. He wasn’t feeling the pain he should have that would have told him he was going too far, that he had to stop this. He just scratched and scraped until that was all he was aware of. Well that and his Devil howling, apparently very angry this action wasn’t against someone else. The Devil did not like this one bit. The Devil had egged him on all day now he couldn’t stand it when Matt actually did something. Good, let him suffer.

“Oh Jesus Christ!” he heard Foggy shout. Hadn’t noticed him come in the room ‘til now. Foggy sounded really, really upset. Didn’t he know Matt was giving it back to his devil? He felt Foggy roughly yank his hands away from his face. “You gotta stop that right now, Matt!” he yelled, sounding terrified.

“I’m just giving the devil his due,” Matt said, surprising them both when his words came out sounding clear and calm.

Matt didn’t resist when Foggy pulled him up onto the couch, encircled him and held his hands down at waist level. It was like a frantic, desperate hug and oddly Matt kinda liked the sensation. Another body pressing against his that solid and warm, sense information that he wasn’t getting elsewhere and for the moment he was perfectly happy to sit, half restrained in his friend’s arms. He vaguely felt the blood running down his face in a detached way. 

…………

Foggy holds onto Matt, arms encircling him and keeping his hands still. Matt is not actively resisting, if anything he seems to be leaning into Foggy. He slowly lets Matt’s hands go. He really needs to get a better look and see what kind of damage has been done. Did Matt manage to actually tear out his eyes? He shifts them around so he can better see Matt’s bloody face. It looks like his eyes are still there but he’s going to have to clean off some of that blood to really see. 

“So not qualified for this,” he mumbles to himself. “Matt, I gotta get something to wipe off that blood okay?”

Matt umm hmm’s, cuddling into the back of the sofa in Foggy’s absence. Foggy tears into the kitchen, grabs a clean dishtowel and is back in front of his friend in about five seconds flat. He’s relieved to find Matt hasn’t resumed trying to destroy his eyes (useless though they may be). Since Matt’s half laying down Foggy maneuvers himself so he’s got Matt’s head in his lap. This reminds him way, way too much of The Night. “Are you hurting?” he asks before slowly and fearfully starting to wipe away the blood.

“Nooo.” Matt says. “Definitely not hurting. Maybe floating though,” and he kind of sounds it too, like his body is laying on the sofa, head in Foggy’s lap but his mind might be hovering somewhere closer to the rafters.

“Okay, floating. We can work with. But Matt do you understand what you were just doing?”

“Floating.”

Foggy breathes out a long, steadying breath. Sightless eyes stare up at him. They’re both there, thankfully. It looks like most of the blood is coming from the delicate skin around the eyes, scratched and torn. It looks like it should hurt. A lot. “I think I should call your nurse friend Claire,” he decides.

“She’s out of town, left on Sunday,” Matt says in a disinterested way, like it doesn’t matter. Right now Foggy thinks it really, really matters. He’s pretty sure he can’t convince Matt to go to the hospital but he sure as shit does not know how to fix his friend in pretty much any sense of the word right now.

“Did your eyes hurt? Is that why you were scratching them?”

“No, nothing hurts,” Matt says, wonder in his voice. “Nothing hurts at all. I just … I couldn’t … I wasn’t getting … I needed to see.”

Well that makes next to no sense to Foggy. He flips the cloth over to the clean side, presses it into Matt’s hand and guides it up so he can catch the small amounts of blood still flowing. Foggy needs to pace but he’s trapped under Matt. Its too much, Matt’s too much today. He wants to be a good friend, he really does but it seems like all day he’s been unable to accomplish this, not for lack of trying. Foggy let’s out a sigh and thinks he’s not just failing Matt today but for awhile now. Here on the sofa, with Matt’s head resting on his lap, bleeding, again, Foggy feels like he hasn’t made a damn bit of difference since The Night.   
He pets at Matt’s hair, hopes its reassuring to at least one of them.   
……………………..  
“Its gone,” Matt says, some time later. There’s no Devil talking up a storm in his head and that’s a huge relief. The silence is almost deafening after so many hours of near non stop chatter and threats. He feels very drowsy and like he’s melting into the couch. Foggy’s hand feels nice running through his hair. He’s never had a man play with his hair before but its not awkward, just calming. Calming in a same way as when a girl does it. It would probably be a little weird if it wasn’t Foggy though. It’s a little too intimate and familiar.

“What’s gone, Matt?” Foggy asks him, sounding apprehensive.

“The voice in my head. Its quiet now.”

“Was it going on all day?”

“Most of it, yeah,” Matt admits. He should feel more embarrassed talking about a damn voice in his head, cause yeah, weird, but he’s pretty sure the pills are clamping down on those feelings.

Foggy’s about to ask him something but he’s conflicted, needs an answer but doesn’t want to ask. Matt can feel him take a breath to ask and pause, twice. Doesn’t take super senses to figure this one out.

“When you go out there, when you go ‘Daredeviling’-“

“It still not a verb Foggy-“ Matt reminds him.

“Stop. I’m serious,” Foggy’s hand stills on top of his head. “Do you hear a voice then?”

Is Foggy asking if he’s crazy? Matt’s not sure here.

“No. I told you this just started today. Or maybe yesterday. Anyway, no, that’s not part of it. Nobody’s telling me what to do. I don’t hear instructions from the neighbours dog or the soap dish, Foggy,” Matt says, trying to make light of this. He can’t handle the serious, not when he feels so floaty anyway. “Its all me. I choose what I do … what I need to do.”

He listens to Foggy’s heartbeat and breathing but finds himself unable to get a read off either at the moment. All he can do is continue melting into the couch and enjoy the feeling of Foggy resuming petting his hair gently. He doesn’t want to discuss it further because he’s positive he can’t win an argument right now and surely if they stay on this topic it will devolve into one. He can’t take Foggy telling him in a thousand subtle ways (and the occasional far more direct ones) that he’s running in the wrong direction with his life.


	6. Chapter 6

Officially they’re out exploring. That’s what Foggy called it back in school and apparently still calls it that tonight. And its not inaccurate per say. There’s always something new to find out in the city, a place you’ve never been, a shop you never knew existed. Its forever changing nature making it unknowable. But going out for the purposes of wandering, without a real destination or purpose its something they’ve not done since school.   
Matt had managed to somehow get through to Foggy that he needed more sensory stimulation than he was getting shut up in his apartment. The drugs were muting the information so that he was not getting a full picture of anything beyond the confines of his living space and that was rapidly becoming suffocating. Foggy considered taking Matt up to the roof for some air but after the random let’s-try-to-nearly-rip-our-eyeballs out session earlier he didn’t even want to consider letting Matt up there where there are only partial railings and a six storey drop. Daredevil might have had no problem dealing with that but a stoned Matt was not likely to make a good landing. He wasn’t off balance exactly but Foggy had noticed that way he lightly bumped a couple doorways and also the kitchen counter by mistake, misjudged where a couple things were when he’d tried to grab them. Matt wasn’t hesitating but it looked like he was miscalculating somehow. Foggy wasn’t sure if it was a perception problem or what and ultimately it didn’t matter. He didn’t really understand how Matt navigated the world even after the World on Fire speech. He just noted the difference but didn’t worry too much about it. Matt had no tolerance to narcotics so to be honest Foggy was surprised the effects on his orientation and movement weren’t even more pronounced. Trying to rip his eyes out had been more than enough of an effect, thank you very much.

And trying to avoid any repeats of that had led Foggy to agree they go out for a bit. If Matt needed more stimulation then so be it. The streets had to be more than enough he guessed. While it was well past midnight and it wasn’t particularly busy out, there was still plenty of noise and traffic and movement and whatever else Matt wanted to take in.

They had decided to take the subway. Foggy’s aiming them towards a hospital but doesn’t mention it. Its not a destination exactly, more that he’d rather be in direct vicinity of one just in case. If Matt has figured this out he doesn’t mention it.

………………….

“Exploring. Like Vikings!” Foggy says, trying to sell Matt on the idea even though its totally unnecessary as Matt’s the one almost clawing at the walls to get out. “Be like when we were at Columbia.”

Sure, they’d aimlessly roamed the city a few times back then. Usually they’d been drinking though. Speaking of, Matt hears Foggy snag a few beers from the fridge and tuck away them into his jacket pockets.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Matt readily agrees. He fumbles for his glasses on the coffee table, hopes Foggy doesn’t notice. He knows where they are but his hand reaches in not quite the place his brain tells it. Something is weirdly disconnected between his brain and his body. It goes hand in hand with the strange numbness the drugs give his body. Its not unpleasant but if it came down to it Matt thinks he’d rather take both the pain and the normal (for him) levels of feeling over this blank numbing. Pain is a more familiar thing to affect his reflexes and he knows how to compensate, how to at least try to ignore it. He’s at a loss how to force himself to function normally right now.   
………………..

They’re the only people in the quiet subway car. Foggy pops open a beer. He can’t help feel a little thrill at doing something mildly illicit.

“One of those for me?” Matt asks.

“Yes,” Foggy says, handing over the open beer. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two bottles of pills. “But just enough to take these.”

Matt sighs deeply beside him. Foggy really hopes he’s not winding up to object. Surprisingly, Matt just holds out his palm. He chugs half the beer with the pills which Foggy thinks is pretty childish. On the plus side, they’re seven stops away from the hospital. These pills kick in weird and Foggy’s going to drag Matt off the subway so fast he won’t know what hit him.

………………….

“Hey Fog, go check under that seat at the end,” Matt suggests, waving vaguely towards the other end of the subway car. He feels dizzy and floaty again, is pretty sure the newest batch of pills are kicking in. He’s been trying to sort out all the information he can about the car around him for the past little while to distract himself. Lifting scents from the seats, the grab bars, the closed in air itself. Listening to Foggy drink his way through the beers and pretend to play on his phone. Matt is under no illusions that Foggy is focused on anything but him. It’s a little unnerving being observed that closely. He’s not used to being so scrutinized for an extended period of time. More and more often now since the Daredevil reveal he gets the sense Foggy’s looking, like really looking at him, noticing his every move in a way that he wasn’t before. It could be his imagination and it’s a tough thing to confirm but he just gets the overall impression Foggy’s got him in his sights lately. And in particular right now so Matt comes up with a distraction. “Last one on the right.”  
Foggy gets up, heads over to where Matt indicated. He hears Foggy shifting around a bit, feeling the edges of the seat tentatively.

“I better not get poked by some needle or put my hand in something gross,” he warns.

Matt tracks Foggy’s hand movements and he’s close. “To the right a couple inches.”

He hears Foggy pull something loose and triumphantly cheer.

“$20!” he says, waving the crumpled bill around in the air as though Matt could see it. “That was awesome!” and sounds like a little kid who’s been impressed by a magician. Matt smiles at Foggy’s enthusiasm, wishes he could always make his friend happy so easily. The dizzy, floaty feeling is not so bad with Foggy next to him, anchoring him to the earth before his head floats off without him.

“Can you do that again?”

“Mmm,” Matt hums. There’s nothing more than exciting than spare change hidden away in this car. “There’s not much else in this car,” he tells Foggy. “We should go exploring,” he says, using Foggy’s term.

“Well now we’re taking money so its more like pillaging,” Foggy sounds delighted. “We are totally Vikings tonight!”

And so they make their way throughout all the cars on their train. Most are empty this time of night, the few passengers they do encounter keep to themselves. By the time the train pulls into the terminal Foggy’s gathered up $46, mostly in 1’s. 

“You know that’s less than we make an hour, right?” he asks Foggy with a chuckle. 

“Okay first off: we literally got paid in bananas last week by one client. Second: its FREE money. You can’t make this any less cool,” Foggy says as they exit the train and he pockets the bills. “How are you not doing that all the time?”

“I do have other things to concentrate on Foggy,” Matt points out. Actually, its never donned on him to try before, only found the $20 because he’d been reaching out for anything he could sense in the subway car. Any information would have done, it just happened to be cash.

Stepping out of the station and back onto the street Matt let’s Foggy lead the way. He’s just lazy enough right now to take Foggy’s elbow and leave his cane folded up and stashed in his jacket. The sounds and smells and feel of the air around him washes over his senses. He knows he’s missing a lot of details but at the moment he’s just sucking up the bigger more obvious sensations like the air temperature, the solid concrete under his feet. It makes him feel a bit more grounded and attached to the world. He’s fighting the detached numbness that edges around his body and his mind and it feels like he’s more successful now that he’s out in the night air … except that he just stubbed his toe on a crack in the sidewalk that he should have noticed. Foggy sounds super sorry he didn’t warn Matt. He starts to warn him about everything which is not exactly necessary, it was just one crack. But Matt kind of likes the narration, Foggy’s safe and familiar voice in his ear. Its nice even if he’s not actually listening to the words being said. They’re warm and fluffy and sink into him because right now he’s warm and fluffy too.

……………..

Foggy’s beginning to think maybe they should have stayed closer to home. Matt’s clearly stoned but trying valiantly to appear like he’s fine. The lost money thing was really cool, definitely Matt’s best super power yet. But he’s moving kinda slowly now that they up and outside walking again. However, and most importantly, there’s no eyeball clawing so they’re still winning as far as Foggy is concerned. Matt slightly trips but catches himself for at least the third time now. Its probably because he’s dragging his feet a bit, not how he normally walks. Foggy didn’t think about it before but now he’s decided to verbally forewarn Matt for the rest of the walk. 

They’re headed towards the riverfront. Its something of a natural endpoint so rather than turn at the last intersection Foggy leads them down toward the heavy railing at the water’s edge. It’s a beautiful skyline, especially in the predawn light. They lean on the railing, Foggy enjoying the view. He doesn’t know what Matt’s getting out of this but clearly he likes something about it as there’s a small grin on his face.  
“Describe it for me?” Matt asks, softly. Usually its functional things like photos and printed words Foggy relays for Matt. It’s not usually something so vast or as beautiful. He tries his hardest to paint a picture with his words so Matt can see what he sees.

“Well the sky is just starting to turn from blue to pink and purple, and there’s streaks of white from airplanes…”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some reference to recreational drug use in here - not sure if that needs a warning? Probably not given Matt's either drunk or stoned for most of this fic, LOL. But yeah, an OC unnamed character uses recreational drugs and experiences a non-fatal overdose, in case anybody needs a heads up ahead of time.

They’re not too far from Matt’s apartment when exactly the one thing Foggy had been worried about all night happens. Matt freezes up then bolts off down an alley, no explanation, no hesitation. By the time he catches up Matt’s on his knees, pounding the living shit out of some greasy guy. It’s a little scary to see, Foggy’s not actually use to seeing violence up close and personal while it happens. He literally watches as blood droplets fly through the air as Matt drives his fists over and over again into the guy’s face.

Just when he’s sure Matt isn’t going to stop of his own accord and Foggy is trying to figure how to get him to stop Matt backs off, leaves the guy coughing and gurgling on the ground. He hurries over behind the dumpster and Foggy hears him softly murmur, “Oh no.”

Foggy moves to join him, unsure if he even wants to know what’s next. He’s pretty sure watching Matt pound that guy into the ground also beat some of his nerves and sanity out his own mind.

“She’s overdosed Foggy! Check her bag, see if she has any Narcan!” Matt is crouched over an unconscious women. Her dress is pulled and torn and while it helps complete the picture as to what was happening with the now beaten guy, it doesn’t solve the more immediate problem. Foggy tears into the woman’s large purse, not totally sure what it looks like but hoping he’ll recognize what he’s looking for when he finds it. Matt is gently laying her down on the filthy alley ground, tipping her head back to open her airway.

Foggy locates what looks like a pouch for medical stuff if the white cross on it is anything to go by. “Got it!” He unzips it, is super thankful there’s a quick directions card that’s basically just pictures. Matt’s not making any moves to take it. “Do you know how to use this?” hoping like hell Matt knows.

“No,” Matt admits, sounding super guilty. Foggy takes another look at the instructions and hopes for the best as he jams the needle into the woman’s leg.

………………..

Matt’s super relaxed as he and Foggy get closer to his apartment. He’s taking floaty steps above the ground but somehow he’s still at Foggy’s height. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but it doesn’t really bother him enough to figure out. He’s getting sleepy and looking forward to getting to his bed. And just about the time he tries to calculate how much longer ‘til he can go to sleep he hears it. Two heart beats, one way to fast, the other too rapidly slowing. There’s scuffling, something is not right and its just up ahead. He drops Foggy’s arm and takes off, no time to explain. He enters the alley to find a greasy man hovered over what appears to be an unconscious woman. Her dress is torn up the side, pulled down at the neck baring her bra. And Matt sees red before he tears the man off her and with no hesitation starts whaling on him. The guy puts up no fight, mainly because Matt grabbed him by surprise and made sure those first couple hits really counted. He looses track of how many times he hits the guy but backs off long after he ceases to be a threat.   
He hears the woman’s heartbeat stuttering, slowing to far to low a pace. “Oh no.” He can smell the drugs on her. There’s burnt tin foil beside her, residue smells distinctly chemical. Its familiar enough that he knows its some kind of opiate. He hopes she came prepared because he sure isn’t.

“She’s overdosed Foggy! Check her bag, see if she has any Narcan!” he orders as he eases her to lie on her back, tilts her head.

“Got it!” Foggy announces. Matt dumbly realizes while he’s heard of this he’s never actually handled it, doesn’t know the specifics of what’s involved. “Do you know how to use this?”

“No,” he says, hoping Foggy can help out here. He totally does because within moments the woman gasps awake, coughing and scratching at the ground. Matt leans over her, hushing her softly. Foggy’s on the line calling for ambulance, going to the opening of the alley to double check for landmarks to describe more specifically where they are for the operator.

“Who sold you this?” Matt asks, holding the burnt tinfoil before the woman’s face. 

“Caring pharmacy, two blocks over. I asked for Harvey, he can get you the real prescription stuff and this too for cheap.” He’s not sure why she’s so forthcoming. Maybe she thinks he’s an addict too. Doesn’t really matter because as soon as she’s told him she’s back to only being half awake. 

Matt’s already making plans for Daredevil to pay this Harvey a visit.

………..

“WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL, MATT?” Foggy’s yelling. Matt finally clues in just how upset his friend is. He’d been dimly aware of Foggy’s angst as they made their way back to the apartment, had half noted the racing heartbeat and puffing breaths beside him on the street. But now it seems like Foggy was just holding back ‘til they got inside to really let it out. And he’s not holding back now.

Matt continues washing the blood from his hands and listens to Foggy having a meltdown in the living room. Its not that he doesn’t care, just knows its probably for the best to let him get it out before trying to get a word in edgewise. 

“And oh my god did you see her…”

Matt half listens, busies himself with grabbing a couple glasses and the bottle of whiskey from the shelf, drops them onto the table. He thinks better of it and retrieves one of glasses. Now is not the time to poke the bear.

“And you were, just … with the … and the …”

He pours Foggy a drink and hands it to him as he paces nearby, hears Foggy chug it back mindlessly. The silence is deafening for a moment after the tirade.

“Is that what you do? Is that what’s it like?” Foggy asks, finally at a normal volume, as though he’d had no clue until seeing it first hand.

And yeah, Matt realizes Foggy has quite likely not seen something like that before. Surely he’s been witness to some violence over the years. They did after all grow up in Hell’s Kitchen. But maybe this was just a little more up close and personal than before. Maybe cause its never been his best friend beating the living hell out of someone right in front of him. Matt doesn’t know how to answer the question. Foggy should know this, should not be this surprised.

“Jesus Matt! Is that guy even alive?” Foggy’s back to a raised voice and blood pressure to match.

“Yes, he was breathing just fine when the paramedics arrived,” Matt reassures him. “Not sure he still has his front teeth though.” He hopes the satisfaction in his voice doesn’t come through.

And suddenly Matt hears Foggy’s heart bounce inside his chest, smells something on him he doesn’t like. There’s a step back from the table, an undeniable shuffle. Matt knows damn well what it is but doesn’t want to admit it. 

Foggy’s afraid. 

And for the first time Matt’s pretty sure its of him.

…………..

Foggy’s a mess of emotions. He’s running on no sleep and feeling fucking traumatized by the last half hour, hell, the last whole damned day. He knows he’s been yelling at Matt but can’t even remember what he’s said, words stomping all over each other in their haste to leave his mouth. He takes the glass Matt offers him and chugs the shot. He wants to ask Matt a million things, doesn’t have the guts to listen to the answers, afraid they’ll confirm things he doesn’t want to admit about his friend. There’s something deeply unsettling about the way Matt flippantly dismisses the clusterfuck that just happened. Matt has pissed him off, has unnerved him, driven him half crazy with worry, creeped him out but never in all the years they’ve known each other has he ever really made him feel afraid. He’s not even sure if he’s more scared for what Matt’s done (Does every goddamned night?), for what he MIGHT do, for what he COULD do … to anyone? To him? Its just one big ball of fear and he doesn’t know what to do with it. The temptation to run out of the apartment is strong. Really strong. Run away and not look back. 

Foggy pulls Matt’s pill vials out of his jacket pocket, tosses them onto the table, turns on his heel and escapes out the front door without a word.


	8. Chapter 8

Matt runs his fingers very, very slowly over the labels on the pills bottles. Print is hit or miss for him, it always has been. Depends on the paper, the ink, the impressions. He can read his own name on the label (although maybe that’s just because he know its there, knows to search for it), thinks he can make out the drug names and dosages. But the sticking point is the pharmacy’s name. He thinks that part must have been printed elsewhere, premade label that’s too smooth to sense. Its damned annoying but not exactly a surprise. 

He didn’t know what to do when Foggy left, taking all the air out of the room with him. So its probably been a good 15 minutes and he’s still here, sitting at his table, fiddling with the pill bottles that he doesn’t open, has no idea when he’s supposed to take them. Pretending he’s not freaking out that Foggy’s never coming back, that this is the last straw and he maybe just lost everything. He’s internally beating himself up for not being able to explain to Foggy just what happened. He’d smelled vile pheromones on that creep, felt that poor girls torn clothes, heard her heartbeat going far too slowly as she was nearly taken out by the drugs she’d just consumed. It wasn’t going to be a pretty ending in that alley whether he’d arrived or not. But he’d managed to express none of this to Foggy and pretty spectacularly failed at reassuring his friend. He’d like to blame the damn narcotics for slowing his brain, for leaving him at a loss how to fix the situation but he’s pretty sure the failing has nothing to do with that.

Matt grabs Foggy’s abandoned glass, pours himself a couple fingers, slugs it back, takes off his glasses and just puts his head down on the table, hating every minute of this mess.

…………..

“Hey, Matt. You awake?” Foggy asks, gently poking his slumped over friend in the shoulder. Matt perks up but the look on his face is hard to read. “I got bagels,” Foggy tells him, popping the bag on the table. 

He’d made it only half a block from Matt’s apartment before realizing there was no way he’d leave Matt on his own today. The scratched up and bruised eyes now looking (almost) back at him, combined with a very miserable expression confirm he’s made the right choice. Hitting up the 24 hours donut shop down the street had been a good break. He’d needed to clear his head. Between the eyes, the swelling of his jaw from the tooth and the busted up knuckles Matt looks like he’d had his ass handed to him, not like he was the one doling out punishment earlier. He does not look even remotely threatening right now, just tired.

“He was going to rape her, Foggy. And probably worse,” Matt says tiredly, still half slumped over the table in front of him, no fight left.

“Yeah, I get it. Look I’m sorry I freaked out, okay?” He takes a seat at the table and slides the bag of food over to Matt across the table. “Peace offering?”

Matt wordlessly fishes out a bagel, somehow seems relieved without saying a word.

“Can you read the label on my pills?” Matt asks, seemingly out of the blue.

“Oh you’re not due for another dose for another …” checking his watch. “few hours anyway. Why, are you hurting?”

“No, can you tell me what it says. Please. All of it.”

“Ooookay,” Foggy obliges. He’s not sure where this is going but it’s a simple enough request. 

He’s equally puzzled when Matt has him repeat the pharmacy name, like he needs to be sure. 

“We need to go back to the pharmacy.”

“What? You don’t trust me I’m giving these to you right?” Foggy asks, tone light. He doesn’t mean it but he’s not sure where Matt’s headed with this. His whole demeanor has perked up. No more slouching over the table looking like a kicked puppy.

“No, no. I uh … want to ask some questions.” Its evasive but Foggy will let it stand.

“There’s a phone number. They should be open in a few hours. Or the Google?”

“No. I want to go there. Please, Foggy.”

“Okay, okay,” Foggy agrees. This is definitely not worth arguing about. Leave that to the bigger issues that keep cropping up. “But its 6:30 am. I need sleep. You DEFINITELY need sleep.” Matt tries to wave him off but Foggy continues, “We BOTH need sleep before any more adventuring.”

They crash for all of three hours before Foggy is nudged awake from his spot draped over the sofa. Matt’s up, dressed and chomping at the bit to get going. And he’s back to rubbing at his jaw. Foggy gets up, dragging ass cause he’s not use to only getting three hours sleep and trying to be a functional human being. Says as much but gets no response from Matt who’s already getting his shoes on. Hopes the lack of response isn’t from Matt listening to returning voices in his head.

…………

“Yeah, that’s what it says, that’s the place: Caring Pharmacy, the one off 77th. So what?”

If it wasn’t in his neighbourhood he’d think it too convenient a coincidence. There were probably more than a few crooked pharmacies in Hell’s Kitchen. But sure enough it was exactly the place they’d been yesterday. Nothing had seemed amiss when they were there, with the possible exception of the pharmacist who talked to him like he was an idiot. He hadn’t noticed anything to raise suspicions. Still, Matt has the scent of drugs burnt on tin foil still lodged somewhere between his nose and his brain. He has to go back there to confirm that poor addict he’d saved earlier was right.

“We need to go back to the pharmacy,” he tells Foggy.

“What? You don’t trust me I’m giving these to you right?” Foggy asks without sounding like he means it. There’s apology bagels on the table and he most definitely does not want Foggy to think his doling out of pills is the issue. Matt’s fairly certain if it was left solely up to himself he’d probably never have taken them in the first place, would still have a running monologue of a Devil going in his head. 

“No, no. I uh … want to ask some questions,” he says vaguely hoping Foggy will let it go. 

“There’s a phone number. They should be open in a few hours. Or the Google?”

Matt convinces Foggy to go with him when the store opens but Foggy insists they grab some sleep first. Matt retreats to the bedroom, earbuds and phone in hand. He spends the next few hours online researching, looking for any connections between this pharmacy and what involvement they may have that can be tracked. He lets Foggy crash for a few hours before its time for the pharmacy to be open and he can do a little daytime investigating. He could just slip out, odds are good he could go and be back before Foggy wakes. But he’s really not about to risk it cause if Foggy wakes up while Matt’s out he’s sure he’s likely to have a conniption.

………………

The pharmacy is two blocks over and one down. They get there quickly, right at opening. Matt excuses himself from Foggy, tells him it’ll just take a couple minutes and heads for the counter. Foggy takes the hint and makes himself scarce, thumbing through magazines. 

Matt smells the air and can’t pick up anything like what he smelled in the alley. Doesn’t mean its not here, but it seems less likely. He SHOULD be able to pick it up. Of course there’s like a million different pharmaceuticals in the place so its hard to be certain. At least the narcotics in his own system have mostly worn off so Matt knows he’s getting as clear a shot at sensing it as possible. 

He’s in luck because the pharmacist is young, female and sounds like she wants to scoop him up and play nurse rather than pill pusher. He plays the poor me, dumb blind guy act for the pharmacist. Isn’t proud, maybe flirts just a little, asks a few seemingly innocuous questions. The pharmacist (thankfully not the same one from the other day) is putty in his hands, confirms yes, these are the right pills, yes he’s taking them right and so on. Considering the Devil yesterday was insisting he’d received poison Matt doesn’t actually mind having a second set of eyes look it over. He smiles and puts on the charming act while he half listens to her, half focuses on the phone call going on in the backroom. Shipment tomorrow night, 11:00pm. And yeah, that’s does seem a bit unlikely to be anything legit being so far outside normal business hours. He still doesn’t catch a whiff of the drug from before but its fine, he’s got enough evidence to be satisfied Daredevil will be making an appearance when that delivery arrives. He thanks the pharmacist for her time, gently cuts off her cooing over his face. Matt pokes the offending (and now that he thinks about it, hurting) tooth with his tongue. He hadn’t actually considered everyone looking at his swollen jaw. Has become sort of complacent about his injuries being on view. He’s not super pleased to think of it drawing attention. 

On their walk back to the apartment Matt decides to ask, “Foggy, how bad does my face look?”

Foggy stops. “Take your glasses off.” Apparently he needs a full picture to make his assessment. Matt obliges though he had been referring only to his jaw. “Yeah, put them back on.”

“That good, huh?” Matt find himself suddenly very aware of how many people are out on the street and brushing past them on the sidewalk.

“Why, did the pharmacist shoot you down? Oh wait! That’s it isn’t it? That’s why the big rush to come here. You wanted to ask her out?”

Well that makes for a rather convenient excuse Matt has to admit and decides to play along.

“Ah you know…” he trails off, smiles, seemingly embarrassed and self conscious. “But she seemed like she just really wanted to take care of me.”

“I’ll bet she did. Take care of you all the way to bed,” Foggy says. Somehow he sounds impressed, jealous and amused all at the same time.

Matt just laughs lightly. 

………………

No wonder that hot (and aren’t they always with Matt?) pharmacist wanted a piece of Matt. He most definitely is working the wounded duck look right now. Hard. Foggy wants to put Matt to bed (not in the sexy way though). He’s pretty sure Matt does not adequately understand just how tired and rough he looks. The swelling has yet to go down on his jaw and when Matt tosses his glasses on the coffee table Foggy takes another look at all the scratches and newly formed bruises that surround his eyes. It looks painful.

“You, my friend, are over due for meds.”

He’s willing to bet Matt has to be feeling a least a bit awful because he obediently pulls the pill bottles out of his pocket, dry swallows the pills, and let his head thump against the back of the couch.  
Foggy plops down in an arm chair across from him, takes out his phone and pretends to not be watching Matt like a hawk. There will be no repeating of the whole trying to claw his eyes out on his watch.

“Foggy you don’t have to stay. I’m probably just going to sleep anyway,” Matt says, his voice gravelly.

“You’re kidding, right?” Foggy says, feels himself working into a froth, visions of Matt trying to rip himself apart again floating in his mind. He shoves all the comments, both nice and nasty down. This is not the time. He will not kick Matt while he’s down. “Just go to bed Matt,” he says instead, as neutrally as he can manage.

“Yeah, I will in a minute,” Matt says, making absolutely no move to get up.

Foggy assumes Matt’s dozing cause he’s quiet for awhile, eyes closed, head still resting on the sofa back. Foggy tries his best to pretend he’s not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The next time he looks up from his phone screen Matt’s being weird again. Low-key weird but weird never the less. Pills must be kicking is cause he’s literally slowly waving a hand in front of his own face, back and forth. Foggy thinks he looks like someone on an acid trip, amused by visual trails from their own movement. But Matt’s obviously not seeing the hand he keeps shifting back and forth in front of his face. Its not scary and its definitely not dangerous but its really weird to see. Foggy has no idea what Matt’s getting out of it, if anything. He kinda hates to break the spell but figures maybe he should check that everything’s okay.

“You okay, Matt?” he asks quietly.

Matt jumps and startles like he’d forgotten Foggy was even there. He yanks his hand down so fast it thunks into his lap audibly. And he looks mortified, his face suddenly flushed. He couldn’t look more embarrassed if he’d just been caught with his dick out.

“Its okay, no big deal. We’re just chilling,” Foggy says reassuringly. He could swear Matt’s tensing up like he expects to get hit. Its not the first time he’s got that impression either. Why being caught doing something as simple as waving hand in front of his face embarrasses Matt so much is unclear. He wants to ask but thinks he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Don’t do stupid shit,” Matt mumbles, apparently to himself more than to Foggy. He gets up, wavering a bit as he does.

“Bedtime,” Foggy announces, really hoping Matt will actually get his ass in bed before he finally drops.

………..

“What are you doing?” Matt asks sleepily. He’d been about two seconds away from falling asleep when he felt the bed dip beside him.

“Its not that I don’t trust you,” Foggy says, squirming his way into a comfortable sleeping position beside Matt. “Buuut I kind of don’t trust you.”

“You’re literally laying in my bed. Pretty sure there’s some trust there,” Matt says, deadpan.

“I don’t trust you not to do something to hurt yourself right now,” Foggy specifies. He hurriedly adds, “By accident I mean.”

Matt doesn’t have the energy to either be offended or fight over this right now. His head’s buzzing with sleepiness and meds. 

“Whatever. Don’t steal my blankets,” he says and rolls over, asleep before Foggy has a chance to say anything back.

…………….

Foggy had set a timer on his phone for 1 pm. He’d arranged with Karen to set up a client meeting over the phone at 1:30, having had the inkling yesterday that he may not be in the office. The beeping of his phone is shrill in the quiet of Matt’s bedroom. Foggy’s always slow to wake up, no matter how loud the alarm. Unfortunately his bed mate is not.

“Oh my God, Foggy! We’re late for class!” Matt barks out, launching himself out of bed in a minor panic. He promptly walks in the wrong direction and nearly into the wall, catching himself at the last minute. He touches the wall uncertainly, like he wasn’t expecting it to be in his path, looks nine kinds of confused.

“Really late. Like years too late, Matt.”

“What?”

“Long time since graduation, buddy. We’re big, successful lawyers now, remember?”

There’s a pause as Matt’s brain slowly catches up to the here and now. “Ah yeah, sorry. Its just your alarm went off and with you here, I thought … I don’t know.” He moves back to the bed, sits down on the side, apparently trying to shake off the anxiety of waking up in such a rush. 

“Go back to sleep,” Foggy tells him, vacating the bed. “I’ve got a call about the Anderson case soon, sorry the alarm startled you.”

“No no, I’m up, I’m sitting in on the call too,” Matt says. He still looks like shit, maybe moreso cause his five o’clock shadow is verging on an actual beard and the bruising around his eyes has darkened significantly while he was sleeping. His voice is equally rough with lack of sleep.

“Uh uh,” Foggy says. “You are under slept and thoroughly medicated. You wanna make that kind of impression? We kinda really need these paying clients right now.” ‘And I can’t afford you to fuck this up,’ Foggy adds silently not wanting to hurt any feelings.

“They can’t see me,” Matt points out. He’s not wrong but that wasn’t the point Foggy had been trying to make.

“You just almost took yourself out with a wall running for a class that ended years ago, Matt.” He hopes pointing out Matt’s own behaviour will lead him to identify what the problem is.

Matt huffs through his nose, unimpressed but not arguing. 

“Okay how about this: I’ll put it on speaker, you say nothing.”

“Fine,” Matt readily agrees to the terms not even bothering to remind Foggy he’d be able to hear it just fine without the call being put on speaker – it’s the thought that counts here.

………..

Somehow, without saying a word, Matt manages to run the phone call. Karen, Foggy and Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are all the ones talking but through pantomime and hand gestures Foggy steers the questions where Matt wants them. It helps he’s had years reading Matt’s non-verbals. Plus he agrees with Matt’s lines of inquiry. 

“So were they lying about accident?” he asks Matt after they’ve hung up.

“I don’t think so.”

“But you couldn’t tell?” He’s a bit surprised.

“I can’t hear a heartbeat over the phone Foggy,” Matt explains. “Or not well enough to be really useful anyway.”

“Still creepy,” Foggy says. He’s not at all comfortable with the whole Matt listening to people’s inner workings without permission thing but he’s more than happy to use it to their advantage now that he’s aware of the talent. Uncomfortable – yes. Stupid enough to give up their advantage – hell no.

“Sorry,” Matt says, holding up his hands and somehow sounding totally unapologetic. “I’m starving. You?”

“I could eat,” Foggy agrees.

“Thai?” Matt asks hopefully.

“Depends: you gonna break another tooth on it?” Foggy jokes while pulling up the local restaurant’s number on his phone.

“That was lasagna and haha. I probably wouldn’t feel it if I did right now anyway.”

“Feeling comfortably numb?”

“Something like that. Definitely fluffy around the edges,” Matt concedes with a small smile.

“Fluffy?” Foggy asks but never gets the answer as his call connects and he places their order.

“Get lots,” Matt says, talking over Foggy. “I’m starving.”

……………..

“Okay now I’m SURE you have not one but TWO hollow legs!” Foggy says, laughing at Matt, stuffing his face.

“I burn a lot of calories,” Matt tries to justify himself. Its actually the truth but no, he probably didn’t need to inhale that much food tonight. He had no intentions of going out tonight, not as Daredevil at any rate. Foggy was right – these pills were messing with him more than he’d wanted to admit. Between trying to dart across the dorm he wasn’t in this morning, late for a class that finished years ago, and the super embarrassing moment Foggy caught him trying to feel air currents unsuccessfully with his hand (and probably looking every bit the blind idiot Stick would have called him) he had to admit he was just not functioning quite as well as usual. Wasn’t too bad when he was engaged with something. He’d had no trouble navigating their conference call silently earlier, is certain he hadn’t actually needed to be a silent partner for that. But when he wasn’t concentrating on functioning Matt still felt his head flutter and fly away without him. It wasn’t distressing, but it was odd.

……………..

“Can you tell if the picture on the sign is moving or not?” Foggy asks, watching the massive billboard across the street through the window. At night it’s a neat effect when the ads are animated like the one is this week. It lights the living room in a playful display of colours, moving over the furniture and occupants alike.

Matt stops, seems to concentrate, head ticks just slightly to the left. It takes a moment before he finally shakes his head. “No, I can’t tell.”

“It’s really cool when it does. It lights up the room like it’s a dance bar but slower.”

“I SHOULD be able to tell,” Matt says. “The change in electricity…” He’s obviously straining some sense but not getting what he’s looking for.

Now Foggy wishes he hadn’t asked, did not want to point out something Matt couldn’t enjoy or detect. Dick move, despite not having bad intentions. “Don’t worry about it. Just want you to know how much this must impress the ladies when you bring them by at night.”

“Oh I don’t think they’re spending too much time looking out the window, Foggy,” Matt says, rather smugly.

Foggy just shakes his head. Some guys have all the luck.

………………….

Exactly why they’re traipsing halfway across the Manhattan for cigars Matt’s not entirely sure. They haven’t bought cigars since the day they quit Landman and Zack. And there’s nothing they’re celebrating today, not sure before was exactly celebrating then either. But Matt wants out of the apartment so he happily agrees to the plan. Foggy made him swear up and down he wouldn’t engage in any Daredeviling tonight, that they’d be using cell phones to alert authorities should the need arise and that that would be their one and only weapon tonight. Foggy had literally made Matt dig out a bible and swear on it. 

“Cause I know this means something to you,” Foggy said, dead serious.

“Fine. FINE! I swear,” Matt had said, humouring his friend. 

“I take you out and you swear there will be no Daredeviling. At all. Whatsoever?”

“Yes, Foggy.”

“And tomorrow night?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

So here they are, rounding the block to the tobacconist. Matt’s trying his best to keep his shit together and seem normal but his head is floating off again and everything has a surreal quality to it. His steps feel off, words disjointed in his head. Foggy’s been animatedly talking about … something for the last ten minutes but Matt hasn’t really been following, just agreeing and hmming where it seemed appropriate. 

“… but at least you’re not wandering into traffic so there’s that,” he hears Foggy say.

Wait, what?

“Have you even been listening to me?” 

Matt waffles, not really wanting to admit that while he certainly heard Foggy talking, not a single word of what was said had been retained. “Was it the butcher story again? Cause you know, yeah, I might have heard that once or twice.”

“It wasn’t and it was amazing and now you’re never gonna know what pearls of wisdom I have been imparting to you. Also, you know who listens better than you right now? Deli meats!” Foggy says but without any real scorn as he opens the door to the tobacconist’s shop.

It’s a neat place full of humidors, old wood and about a million different varieties of cigars. Foggy leaves Matt to suck in atmosphere, or whatever he does and heads to the counter. He briefly explains that while neither of them are connoisseurs his friend has an amazing nose. He chaallenges the elderly shop keeper to try to stump Matt. They end up spending a good hour in the place and Matt has literally sniffed his way around almost everything. First few things the shopkeeper brings out he explains what to look for and once Matt gets the game he’s able to surprise the shopkeeper by correctly guessing combinations and types. While he doesn’t have the background for in depth knowledge (they’ve literally bought cigars together only three times before total) he impresses the shopkeeper to no end. Eventually they settle on a couple stogies, Matt’s choice and Foggy is more than willing to defer to him despite this being his own idea. 

“Thanks Foggy, this was a good idea,” Matt says as they leave. He feels more present in the here and now than during their trip to the shop. 

…………..

Matt had outright refused to let them smoke in his apartment. It wasn’t unreasonable - surely the odour from the cigars would have lingered, not to mention no smoking was in the lease. They’d decided to sit up on the roof. Foggy had twice reminded Matt of his vows and said they extended to not jumping off the roof of the building. They’d briefly argued about the legalities of changes to contracts after they were signed versus what constituted an oath but Matt had assured him the only way he was getting off the roof was by the access stairs that led into his apartment.  
“And stay away from the edge!” Foggy warned him. “I am so not scraping you off the sidewalk.”

Matt promptly moved further towards the centre of the roof then launched himself over an HVAC unit, spun mid-air, head over heels and landed in a perfect crouch. He stood up smoothly, smirking at Foggy smugly. Foggy was momentarily dumbstruck having never seen Matt move like that, not in person, only in his Daredevil costume on grainy video. And he would have continued being impressed had Matt not slightly stumbled on his subsequent walk to where Foggy has sitting. 

“Well executed maneuvers but gotta say you didn’t kill it on the landing. Judge’s score is a 7.5,” pretending it was the Olympics.

Matt let out a small laugh, continuing to where Foggy was seated on a metal box located at the centre of the building. Once he’d taken a seat, shoulder to shoulder with Foggy, out came the cigars. They puffed away in silence for a few minutes. It reminded Foggy of the night after they’d (nicely) told Landman and Zack to stuff their job offer. They’d puffed away on cigars that night too but it hadn’t been quiet like this. They’d been full on brain storming about setting up their own practice.

“Do you ever think it was a mistake?” he asks.

“No. Never,” Matt says without hesitation. “Had to be done. Still needs to be. Sometimes the system is broken and it needs to be fixed. People can’t keep getting away with abusive crimes in this city.”  
Foggy’s suddenly not sure if Matt’s referring to their refusing to join the firm or his Daredevil routine.

“I’m talking about Landman and Zack. About the day job.”

There’s a pregnant pause before Matt says, “I was too.” Foggy wants to call bullshit and wishes for not the first time he shared Matt’s ability to read heartbeats for lies.

They go back to puffing on their cigars in silence.

……………..

“The only way I’m getting off this roof tonight is the same way I came up,” Matt reassures Foggy. There’s three other perfectly safe (for him anyway) ways down but Matt has no intensions of taking those tonight. He wanders over to the East side of the roof, listening idly to the sounds of the neighbourhood, trying to ignore the fact that he’s not up here to start a night of bouncing across rooftops and protecting his city. It’s easier than normal to shove down the guilt thanks to the fuzz of the narcotics but that’s not solving anything.

“And stay away from the edge! I am so not scraping you off the sidewalk,” Foggy warns him from his perch in the middle of the roof.

Matt knows there’s no way he’s falling over the edge of his roof, drugs or not. Before he’s had time to remind himself not to shove his abilities in Foggy’s face (cause weirding out his friend is not going to help his acceptance along in any way), Matt impulsively launches, leaps and flips across the space. He nails it and knows it was totally unnecessary but thoroughly satisfying nevertheless. Clearly he’s more than capable of wandering the edges of his own roof top. But he curses the meds floating around his system when he slightly stumbles over nothing on his way over to Foggy, knows he has completely ruined the effect and the point he was trying to make.

Foggy tries for a dramatic announcer’s voice as he tells him, “Well executed maneuvers but gotta say you didn’t kill it on the landing. Judge’s score is a 7.5.”  
He’ll take it he thinks, joining Foggy to sit onto of the large metal box. He holds out his hand, a cigar and a disposable lighter and are promptly placed in his palm. He lights up. Its half disgusting, half fascinating. He tastes the hints of different flavours the tobacconist had mentioned and a lot more. It’s complex and oddly reminds him of pad thai – not the same but something about the amount of various flavours. He takes a few more puffs before a siren in the distance catches his ear and he’s actively listening for police radios before reminding himself he’s off duty tonight. It doesn’t sit well. He knows he should be out there, doing something about it. He thinks of the first night he’d pulled a mask over his face, thinks of the very first guy he’d stopped with his fists in the dark. His resolve hasn’t wavered from the moment his fist made contact with that pedophilic bastard’s face til right now. He made his decisions and he damn well intends to keep them.

“Do you ever think it was a mistake?” 

“No. Never,” he responds, not bothering to question how Foggy knows his train of thoughts. “Had to be done. Still needs to be. Sometimes the system is broken and it needs to be fixed. People can’t keep getting away with abusive crimes in this city.”

But isn’t that exactly what he’s allowing to happen this evening? He’s not out there, not stopping jack shit tonight. Matt rubs at his jaw, thinks the swelling might be going down a bit, hopes its better by tomorrow but doubts it. Either way there won’t be another night of downtime like this. Daredevil has an appointment in less than 24 hours at the crooked pharmacy.

“I’m talking about Landman and Zack. About your day job,” Foggy specifies.

Well shit. Apparently they’re not on the same mental wavelength after all.

“I was too,” Matt lies, pretty sure it doesn’t come out sounding at all convincing. The obscene amount of money still owing in student loans and a law degree should lead to being a smoother liar than this he thinks. Foggy doesn’t say a word, just keeps puffing on his cigar silently beside him.

The night air has been still, the smoke seemed to hover around them in a cloud that Matt can taste but finally a small breeze floats by wafting the cloud away and setting off his wind chimes lightly. Foggy notices them for the first time. He gets up to check them out.

“These’s Fran’s?” Foggy asks. Foggy is aware that the neighbour across the hall is the only other tenant who’s apartment has direct roof access. “I thought you said she never comes out here?”

“She doesn’t,” Matt says. “They’re mine.” 

He hears Foggy bumping them softly, making them ring out into the night. One of the tubes doesn’t sound though, Foggy must have his hand on it. Matt can hear him running a finger along its length, feeling the many, many tiny holes he laboriously drove into the tubes. It effectively gave them a completely unique sound to anything else in all of New York as far as Matt can tell. If Foggy notices the delicate repeating pattern of “DD” the holes make along its length he doesn’t mention it.

“For easier navigation. Just in case,” Matt explains.

“That’s a really good idea, Matt. How close do you have to be to hear them?”

“Not close,” Matt tells him. He’s not sure what the absolute limit would be to pick out the chimes unique tune over the general din of the city. He hasn’t tested this yet specifically. But he can guess its well past what Foggy would consider far. 

Foggy taps them again, this time not touching any of the tubes after they’re set in motion. Matt let’s their special melody continue locking itself deep in his memory.


	9. Chapter 9

Foggy’s never been the little spoon. He’s done plenty of cuddling in his days but he’s always been the holder and not the hold-ee. Its not a bad feeling, just different. Its still warm and safe and its a great way to wake up, even if it’s the middle of the night. He doesn’t even mind that its Matt because well, its Matt and the rules just don’t apply to him. Having slept in the same room for so many years before, any soft sounds or movements in sleep from his friend don’t register as a reason to wake up, they blend into the white noise of sleep with a reassuring familiarity. But Matt has now woken him from his comfortable slumber by nuzzling or sniffing the back of his neck through his hair and it tickles and now its weird.

“Roll over,” he mumbles to Matt, blindly pushing a hand behind him to dislodge the other man’s hold.

“Hmmm?” Matt mumbles, not really awake.

“You’re smothering me dude, roll over,” he says sleepily, hoping Matt will unwrap himself. He feels Matt’s whole body suddenly tense up, apparently now awake and aware he has Foggy in a horizontal bear hug.

“Shit. Shit. Sorry,” he says, hastily withdrawing his limbs, squirming away. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that,” Foggy says, trying not to let Matt’s anxiety bleed through to him and wake him completely up. He had been getting a really good, deep sleep and would very much like to get back to that.

“I’ll uh … I’ll go crash on the couch,” Matt says hurriedly, sounding super embarrassed.

“Stay,” Foggy says, grabbing an extra pillow from above his head, still refusing to open his eyes. Without rolling over he shoves it behind himself, lengthwise between them. “Problem solved. Go back to sleep.” 

“O-okay,” Matt says, laying back down, facing away now.

“But Matt,” Foggy says. “You cuddle me, in your bed I expect you to make me breakfast in the morning like you would do if I was one of your ladies who stayed over.”

He hears Matt say very quietly, “Oh my God,” still sounding completely mortified. Foggy smiles to himself in the dark, enjoying making Matt squirm just a little, decides it fair since Matt woke him up from really a really good sleep.

And if they both subtly shift back towards each other, trying to feel warmth back to back between the pillow, neither acknowledges it. 

……………..

Matt knows how to properly cook exactly three dishes, all courtesy of Foggy’s teachings and all are breakfast/brunch foods. If pressed, Matt will admit he learned this specifically to impress women for mornings after. It had taken several days to screw up the nerve (or maybe just push down the embarrassment) to ask for Foggy’s help in learning this not too long after they had met. Not only had Foggy noticeably not drawn attention to Matt’s inability to do something most everyone knew by that age, but his friend had also enthusiastically agreed with the reasoning for him wanting to learn. He’d had no concerns Matt would hurt himself working blindly in the kitchen (unlike apparently everyone else’d had while he was growing up) and had happily taught him what he’d learned having been raised in a family who insisted on tasty, home cooked meals.

So while Matt’s fridge is generally mostly full of beer and left over take out, there are always some specific supplies on hand should the need for them arise. Foggy’s almost drooling when Matt places a overloaded plate full of delicious breakfast goodness in front of him.

“Finally those lessons are paying off,” he says around a mouthful of eggs. “You know you’re a natural. You could probably be a really good cooking if you tried, what with your super senses and all that.”

“I never thought about it,” Matt admits. “And I don’t really have the time anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” Foggy says, stabbing a piece of bacon.

They throw on the radio during breakfast, mainly to make sure all hell hasn’t broken loose in New York over the past couple days without them knowing about it. Given the city’s history its entirely possible. Nothing terribly interesting comes up on the news, standard stuff for a big city: mayoral race, spike in overdoses, mostly good weather forecast. None of it jumps out at Foggy as earth shattering and he’s mildly relieved. Everything is going along just fine until Matt unexpectedly refuses to take his painkillers.

“Its better, its fine, I don’t need them,” Matt states, purposely sliding the bottle away from himself across the table. Foggy wisely decides not to point out Matt had returned to rubbing at his jaw while cooking breakfast and the mess of bruising and barely crusted over scratches around his eyes scream otherwise.

“Matt come on. You’ve been so good about this. You know what the dentist said: you have to take all this stuff if you want to get better.”

“Its antibiotics that need to be taken for a full course, not the other stuff.”

“That’s not what he said and do I really need to remind you that you were literally hearing a fucking voice in your head two days ago without these? You want that starting up again?”  
Matt sighs like he really doesn’t want to fight over this but he’s not happy about it. He unhappily takes his pills.

………………….

“No. Hell no, Matt!”

Foggy can’t believe Matt’s actually suited up in his Daredevil costume and is fully intent on heading out tonight. Things had gone so smoothly all day. How had he lost control of this situation?

“Foggy, its not up for debate,” Matt says, pulling his helmet into place. “I don’t have time to argue over this right now. Just trust me. I need to go. Now.”

“You can’t be serious. You have to know this is a bad idea. You’re in no condition to be out doing that … STUFF!” Foggy knows he’s getting loud and can’t stop himself.

“It’s fine. I’M fine,” Matt says, hands going to his hips. There it is: Matt’s power stance. Foggy’s seen it a million times and while Matt’s usually in another type of suit when it happens, its just so typically HIM when he’s digging in his heels.

“You’ve been taking pills all day, they’re messing you up and you know it!”

“Well who’s fault is that!” Matt snaps. “I wanted to stop taking them this morning. You’re the one who insisted!”

Foggy makes a show of walking around the living room, pretending to search behind furniture, poking his head into the bedroom, looking into the bathroom.

“What … what are you doing?” Matt asks him.

“I’m looking around for the hot girl you’re hiding somewhere in here cause there must be one involved for you to be making such a STUPID DECISION!”

Matt huffs, heads for the stairs, apparently done with arguing.

Foggy pulls out his ace card. “Matt if you were going to drive drunk-“

“I don’t drive, Foggy,” Matt interrupts unnecessarily.

“Then if *I* was going to go out and drive drunk wouldn’t you try to take my keys? Try to stop me?”

Matt pauses, halfway up the stairs to his roof. Foggy thinks he just might have gotten though. “You are not in control right now, Matt. Please!”

“No, I’m totally in control,” Matt says, voice dead serious and icy cold. “You asked me if that guy from yesterday, the one in the alley, was alive after I beat him. You know how I know I’m in control? He’s not dead. If I lose control it doesn’t stop at a few missing teeth. If I was out of control … he’d be dead.”

Matt quickly ascends the last few stairs and slams the door behind him.

Foggy just stares at the door feeling like the most useless friend in all of New York.


	10. Chapter 10

Matt wakes up thoroughly confused and in a lot of pain. Even before he tries to figure out where he is and what’s going on he knows he fucked up. Big time. Under the normal run of things he’d have visited the pharmacy the night before the delivery to get the layout of the place, done some level of reconnaissance before serious shit was scheduled to go down. Instead he’d spent the evening puffing on cigars with Foggy. That was the first mistake. Secondly, he should have arrived a lot earlier to get a feel for who was present, what he was up against. Thirdly, and damn if this doesn’t piss him off the most, he should not have gone into this with a pile of narcotics floating around his system. While it did help a bit with blunting the pain of getting hit, it was more than enough to throw him off and fighting too many people with an inability to function properly was exactly as dumb as Foggy had warned him. His friend was right – this WAS a bad decision. Yet somehow, improbably, he’d managed to take out every last bad guy. He’d especially enjoyed smashing in the face of that God damned crooked, condescending, smarmy pharmacist. 

He vaguely remembers putting in an anonymous phone call to the police before fleeing the scene earlier, leaving a trail of bodies incapacitated but very much alive in his wake. He thinks he remembers getting up on a nearby roof but its blank after that. He can smell his own blood and there’s far more of it outside his body that he’s happy with. Its been pooling under his right shoulder where a blade had managed to find its way between the armoured sections of his suit. Without pressure on it while he’d apparently take an impromptu nap, it had continued to bleed freely for some time. And while his helmet was stopping the worst of it, Matt can feel blood steadily leaking from an open cut on his head. He really needs to talk to Melvin about the helmet, see if he can make it any more secure somehow cause this isn’t the first time its happened.

Matt rolls away from the pool of blood under his shoulder. Its rapidly cooling but he can still get a sense of the size and it unnerves him. How long was he laying there bleeding all over this rooftop? He’s dizzy as he sits up, trying to get his bearings. He’s not far from home, remembers which block the pharmacy across the street is located on but his sense of orientation is shot. He’s thankful there’s a breeze when he picks up the sound of the chimes on his roof over the mess of other noises of the city at night. It takes a couple tries to get up and standing without falling over and he’s more dizzy once he gets his legs under himself, has to lean against, something? Can’t even tell what it is, doesn’t care. Its not far but its not going to be fun making his way home. And Foggy, if he’s still there, is going to be righteously pissed with him. He’s not looking forward to the earful he’s likely to receive, and knows he deserves it, but still hopes his friend is there regardless because he’s going to be needing some help and Claire is still out of town. 

Slowly, Matt makes his way back to his apartment, with no finesse or extra moves. He can make the jumps he needs to between buildings but is total shit with every landing, barely able to roll properly, staggering back to his feet each time. A few blocks feels impossibly far and he’s sure he’s leaving a blood trail the whole way. There’s a satisfaction in having stopped the pharmacy dealing drugs illegally, keeping it off the street, but Matt is willing to admit to himself he’s paying quite a price for it now. He should have handled this better. He probably won’t admit it to Foggy but he is very much aware he has fucked up tonight.

……………

Foggy’s stewing on the couch in Matt’s living room, drinking beer and getting more and more worried by the second. When finally he hears the roof top door open he jumps to his feet, heart in his throat. Matt staggers through the door, hand out to grip the railing at the top of the stairs. 

“Matt!” Foggy dashes up the stairs, worried beyond words. Matt’s still standing there, hanging onto the railing like it’s the only this keeping him standing. Its hard to tell in the darkness of the landing but Foggy thinks he sees blood on the Daredevil suit. As he helps his friend down the stairs he can’t help but feel the shaking of the body against him.

“How bad are you hurt?” he asks, needing to know if this is something they can handle or if its just ‘call an ambulance immediately’ bad.

“Its not that bad,” Matt slurs out. “I’m all right.”

“You do not sound all right,” he declares, depositing Matt onto the sofa. “Goddammit why did you have to go out tonight?!” He wants to give Matt a piece of his mind, tell him how stupid and irresponsible he’s been. He just barely stuffs down the impulse to tear a strip off his friend cause it looks like Matt’s having a hard enough time as it is without getting pissed on. He’s noticeably shaking and there’s blood on his face. Under the red of the suit and all the blood Matt’s alarmingly pale. Matt says nothing, just keeps shaking, but let’s out a moan as Foggy starts pulling off the suit, struggling to locate the hidden zippers and clasps. When he finally gets the top part peeled down he’s alarmed to find a slice that’s steadily oozing a lot of blood on the back of Matt’s shoulder.

“Shit. Should I call for an ambulance?” he asks. He’s pretty sure the answer will be no but he really hopes Matt will say yes so someone more qualified can take over.

“No,” Matt says quietly, teeth chattering. “It looks worse than it is.”

“I don’t know if I believe you,” Foggy says, and he means it. Somehow they get the rest of the suit off and he’s mildly relieved to see there’s no other bleeding wounds on Matt’s shaking body. Or at least he thought there weren’t any til he takes off the helmet and see Matt’s hair is damp and matted with blood. Foggy throws the suit on the floor with more force than is necessary, like somehow it’s the cause of all his friend’s suffering. Realistically he knows that given all the armoured plates it probably protected Matt from at lot worse harm but at the moment he needs something to blame so he puts his anger into forcefully tossing it to the floor, hates what it represents, hates what this is doing to him, hates the helmet’s reflective red eyes glaring back at him.

He grabs the blanket off the back of the couch and wraps it around Matt who has yet to stop shaking. He goes to grab towel to use on what he thinks must be a stab wound then presses on it hard when he returns. Matt doesn’t react, just keeps curling into himself, head hanging low.

“I really need you to say something here cause I’m kinda freaking out,” he admits, voice unsteady. And he is. This is way more than he can handle alone. Sure, he’s looked after drunk Matt and painkiller high Matt during the past week but this is some over level shit and Foggy is acutely aware he has no medical training, isn’t qualified to do anything more than put on a Band-Aid.

Instead of reassuring him that death isn’t immanent Matt shakily says, “I’m gonna need you to st-stitch that up. I can’t – can’t reach it.”

“I don’t know how to do stitches, Matt,” Foggy reminds him. “We need someone with actual medical training here.” And maybe a hospital too, he adds silently.

“Time for you to learn,” Matt says, a small forced smile on his pale face.

…………

They wait for a bit ‘til Matt’s shaking has lessened and Foggy has had time to Youtube videos on giving stitches. He’s giving all kinds of objections to doing this and a running commentary on the (totally gross) videos he’s watching on his phone but Matt knows Foggy will do this for him. They decide the light is best at the table and Matt unsteadily makes his way to sit there, blanket still clutched around him. 

“Grab the whiskey.” 

“Nope,” Foggy says, while shaking out some pills. “You’re taking these.” 

“Its not for me its for you. You think I want your hands shaking while you’re stitching me up?” he says, accepting the pills and a glass of water. Seems there’s a couple extra pills from the feeling in his hand but Matt thoroughly does not care right now and tosses them back. He’s very much aware that they have no local anesthetic to inject around the wound and this is gonna suck for both of them. He’s gotten use to Claire numbing his wounds before sewing him up but hasn’t forgotten how much it hurts to have a needle repeatedly forced through his skin without it. He hopes the pills kick in quickly.

He hears Foggy take a pull directly from the bottle. And then another.

“You are lucky I’m such a good friend,” Foggy says, apparently screwing up his nerve.

“Yeah Foggy,” Matt admits. “I really am.”

…………….

Foggy manages to get about halfway through closing up the wound before Matt suddenly and without warning bolts up and makes a mad dash to the kitchen, plastic thread and curved needle swinging freely from his shoulder. He throws up in the kitchen sink but tries to tell Foggy that no, he’s not hurting him. It’s a lie and they both know it as Foggy helps him back to his seat at the table. They have to wait a bit ‘til the shaking subsides.  
“This is the most fucked up thing you’ve ever got me to do,” Foggy reminds Matt unnecessarily. 

Matt just nods and tries to settle himself so they can continue. Foggy hurts just looking at him. Matt is an absolute fucking mess. He takes another pull from the whiskey bottle before he resumes sewing Matt back together and thinks this is not how he wants to spend his nights with his best friend.

…………..

Foggy gets Matt to bed when they are thankfully done sewing him together and cleaning up and majority of the blood. Matt’s unconscious before his head even hits the pillow. Foggy’s nerves are thoroughly shot and he retreats to the sofa in the living room. He finishes the beer he’d opened earlier and tries to let the colourful, moving light from the billboard across the street sooth him. It fades and shifts, lighting up the damned suit on the floor. Foggy wants to burn that suit, gather it up and take it to the roof and set fire to it, watch as flames erase it from existence. He knows that wouldn’t stop Matt, knows it’s actually a form of protection but right now he hates what it stands for so much he can barely contain himself. He stands up and kicks it across the room, watches as it slides harmlessly across the floor before coming to a stop against the wall. He shakes his head and sinks back down onto the sofa. He thinks this can’t continue, he can’t do this again, Matt can’t keep doing this. This isn’t sustainable for either of them. But he knows deep down inside this is not the last time he’ll be helping Matt deal with Daredevil fallout, not by a long shot. He doesn’t know what it would take to stop either of them.

Foggy heads for the bedroom. Its too bright and flashy in the living room to properly sleep and he needs to keep tabs on Matt anyway. He leans over and gently shakes Matt by his uninjured shoulder and calls his name. There’s barely a reaction so he knows Matt’s good and knocked out but definitely alive and breathing. He slides into bed beside his broken friend, rolls over and pulls Matt against his chest. He’s warm and limp and offers no resistance. Foggy knows Matt is totally unaware and thinks even if he was he doesn’t care, he just really needs to reassure himself his friend is here and alive. He sniffles and chokes back tears, buries his face in Matt blood stiff hair.

“I can’t stand what you’re doing to yourself, Matt,” he says quietly in the dark. “This shit is not okay. I should not be stitching up my best friend in the middle of the night. You can’t keep doing this. *I* can’t do this. You are literally coming apart at the seams and there’s not enough thread in the world to keep you together. I don’t know what to do here. It’s like there’s not a damn thing I can say that’ll keep you safe. I get so angry at what I see you doing to yourself I can barely keep from screaming at you. I need you. I really, really need you to be okay. Can you please start making yourself a priority over all this other stuff? I get that other people need help, need saving, but you do too.”

There’s no response from the unconscious body he holds tightly against himself. Not that he’d expected there to be. But it doesn’t keep him from needing to say the words. He keeps talking to Matt, hoping some deep part of his brain hears him, knows what he’s telling his friend and actually considers his pleas.


	11. Chapter 11

Matt’s barely above comatose most of the next day. Foggy keeps waking him up to take his prescribed pills (and a couple extra cause Foggy figures its gotta help at this point). Matt is hard to wake each time and not really coherent even when he does open his eyes. When Foggy tries to get him to eat so the pills don’t make him sick Matt eats exactly two bites before giving up and going back to sleep each time. Re-heated Thai gets abandoned to the coffee table after a couple mouthfuls with none of the usual interest. 

Foggy takes multiple calls from Karen. For the first one he spends a good ten minutes talking her out of coming over. She’s really worried about Matt and can’t seem to accept he’s just having a hard time over the infected tooth. Foggy thinks yeah, it’s a bit of a stretch at this point but he really doesn’t need her charging over here and seeing Matt passed out on the sofa looking half dead. The swelling in his jaw has thankfully finally gone down, apparently the antibiotics are actually helping. Aside from that improvement he still looks like death warmed over. He doesn’t even twitch as Foggy discusses (lies about) his condition over the phone. While he’s mostly sure he’s managed to talk her down from charging over to Matt’s apartment, Foggy does get Karen to set up two conference calls for the day because he’s now several days behind with work and they do have clients to attend to. Thankfully said clients are all very, very understanding that Foggy needs to work remotely because he’s taking care of a sick family member. When Matt fails to react to any of the calls, even when they’re put on speaker phone with his cell resting on the coffee table between them, he knows Matt’s good and knocked out. Foggy can certainly handle these calls on his own but would admittedly rather do this with Matt involved.

………………….

“Karen’s here,” Matt says sleepily, still laying limply on the couch, eyes closed.

Foggy hadn’t realized Matt was finally awake, and isn’t even sure if he really is from the sound of his voice.

“No, its just us here,” he tells him.

“She’s coming up the stairs,” Matt warns him, sounding marginally more awake now.

“Shit.”

Foggy has no idea how to cover this. Matt looks half dead on the sofa and there’s no really good explanation for it, particularly since his jaw is not noticeably swollen anymore. The tooth thing is not gonna cover this. They’re really going to have to come up with a cover story for times like this. Karen isn’t stupid and she’s not going to keep accepting bullshit excuses for much longer.

“I have a headache and I’m sleeping,” Matt says.

“Really?”

“No. Tell Karen,” Matt says quietly.

“Yeah okay,” he agrees. It’s a reasonable excuse. Foggy heads to the door and opens it just as Karen is about to knock.

“Hi, yeah I’m sorry for just popping by. I thought you could use your laptop?” she says, offering Foggy’s bag and computer.

“Oh thanks, yeah that’s great,” he says, not meaning a word of it, subtly blocking the doorway so she doesn’t enter.

“Is Matt okay?” Karen asks. They’ve talked about this at length on the phone but clearly she hasn’t believed a word Foggy said earlier.

“Yeah yeah, he’s okay. But he woke up with a bad headache. He just fell asleep actually. We shouldn’t wake him up.”

“Oh, um, okay.” She says, disappointed and clearly suspicious. “Well, can you tell him I said hi?”

“For sure. Thanks Karen,” Foggy says, holding up the bag in his hand. “I’ll uh, we’ll call you tomorrow. Thanks again.”

Foggy closes the door in her face as fast as he can politely do so. He leans back against the closed door and let’s out a relieved sigh. He feels like he dodged a bullet but has serious doubts it’ll be that easy going forward.  
Heading back into the living room he’s surprised to see an empty sofa, blanket haphazardly laying on the floor. Bathroom door’s closed though so thankfully it’s not a sign of another emergency. He hears the shower turn on and really hopes Matt doesn’t fall over and crack his head open.

………….

Matt is just a little bit grossed out as he one-handedly shampoos all the dried blood out of his hair. Reaching for stuff with his right hand/arm is going to be an issue for at the very least a few days (and quite likely longer than that) he quickly realizes when the stitches on the back of his shoulder tug uncomfortably with even minimal movement. The wound is actually more severe than he’d sensed yesterday, both deeper and wider than he’d perceived at the time. No wonder he’d left such a large amount of blood behind. And speaking of that he was most definitely feeling the effects of the blood loss, finding himself leaning against the shower wall dizzily every few minutes. Wonderful.

After cleaning himself up he unceremoniously dropped the Daredevil suit to the bottom of the tub into the slowly draining water. It was annoying how the tub took forever to empty but the issue hadn’t seemed worth the hassle of calling the super. Matt was half tempted to ask Foggy to see if he could fix the problem but he was acutely aware of just how much he’d (however silently) asked of his friend over the past week and somehow requesting his plumbing skills felt really excessive at this point. Whatever, he thought as he plugged the drain, the soapy water left over from his shower would be put to good use anyway to soak the suit. At minimum, once every two weeks, Matt found himself cursing his own laziness for not dealing with the blood soaked suit immediately after taking it off when it was still wet and the blood (usually his own but not infrequently also splatters of someone else’s) was still fresh. He poured in a rather large amount of liquid detergent and left the garment to soak. He already needed to talk to Melvin about possible improvements to the helmet – would it be unreasonable to ask if the man could somehow make the suit machine washable? It sounded like a petty request but honestly, the thing was a real pain in the ass to clean, particularly when it wasn’t dealt with promptly which was often the case as Matt tended to be slightly more concerned with stopping his bleeding than caring for the suit at the end of a difficult night.

Having dealt with the suit for now, Matt turned his attention to the borderline beard he’d grown. He hadn’t even considered shaving when his face was both sore and weirdly and unevenly swollen from the tooth infection. But now that that had resolved he really needed to deal with shaving before he looked more lumberjack than lawyer. And if he’d needed to pause to lean on the counter more than a few times ’til the wooziness passed during the process, so what? He had no intensions of telling Foggy he’d actually resorted to finishing seated on the closed toilet lid, towel in his lap to catch the falling hairs as he shakily ran his electric razor over the last few errant whiskers. 

By the time he was done Matt felt presentable but decidedly shaky and cold. He knew the bathroom must still be humid and warm but with just a towel wrapped around his waist, and more than enough of his blood probably still staining a random rooftop several blocks away, he felt decidedly chilled. He shoved down the shivers as much as he could before venturing out to his bedroom. There was no point in worrying Foggy more than he already had this week. It was time to stop being a pussy Matt resolved, pointedly ignoring that the self talk voice in his head sounded decidedly more like Stick than himself. Someday he was going to shake that. Today was clearly not that day. At least it wasn’t a raging Devil he was hearing in his mind anymore. 

…………………

“Marry me?” Matt asked, his tone so overly beseeching it was clearly said in jest.

“Okay first up, sorry, you’re just not my type. And secondly, we are already way, way more committed than that, Matt,” Fogy said half jokingly.

He’d decided while Matt was showering that what they absolutely needed was some really good food for dinner. And the stars had aligned because it arrived surprisingly fast, still steaming hot. Foggy was glad he’d tipped the delivery guy well. He’d ordered Matt a medium rare steak and spinach salad and had been totally amused to watch the man quite obviously follow his nose from his bedroom to the table, almost drooling. He’d been craving food from this particular restaurant anyway and it wasn’t difficult to figure what Matt would want – no carbs cause he always got ansty if he ate them without the ability to burn them off promptly and, more importantly, food with high iron. Foggy did not want to ask Matt just how much blood he was missing. He was much more concerned with helping manage that mess than knowing the details. Foggy had no confidence in his ability to help in any medical way despite the fact that Matt stated the stitches were holding just fine and were thus completely adequate no matter how uneven they may be. But ordering up the perfect take out meal? Oh yeah, he is all kinds of skilled when it comes to that, thank you very much. And this was exactly the excuse Foggy needed to splurge for a decidedly more expensive meal than normal. 

“Fine fine,” Matt said, digging into his food delightedly. “I’ll return the engagement ring.”

Foggy just laughed before tucking into his own food.

…………….

“Did you tell Karen we’ll be in to the office tomorrow?” Matt asks. He had made his mind up and totally intended to at least finish the week by getting some work done. His tooth was technically still broken of course but thankfully no longer giving him any grief. The stab/slash wound on his shoulder does not feel great but provided he doesn’t over reach and Foggy’s stitches hold it really shouldn’t cause much of a problem while engaging in normal office work. The effects of the blood loss are by far the biggest problem now but he was managing to get around, albeit was more slowly and unsteadily than he was happy to admit. But really, if he stayed more or less planted at his desk tomorrow Matt didn’t see this posing a huge problem. He’d have to splurge on a taxi in the morning but yeah, a few concessions and he should be capable of going to work.  
“I wasn’t too sure where we were at last time I spoke to her,” Foggy explains, comfortably leaning against a raised glass skylight on the roof. They’d decided to down a couple beers on the roof for a change of scenery. It’s starting to get dark now Matt can tell. He suspects the sunset is pretty tonight as Foggy had purposely set himself to face in that direction rather than the access door they’d come through. Matt had really enjoyed Foggy’s vivid description of the sunrise the other day and is half tempted to ask him how the skyline looks now from the view on his roof but it seems like a silly thing at ask for so he just satisfies himself with the assumption it looks nice. “I mean it is Friday tomorrow – you could call it a long weekend and that’d be totally fine.”

Matt internally cringes at the reminder that he’s mostly avoided work this week, though perhaps it had been somewhat necessary. But he has to stop slacking off. He absolutely needs to get his shit together and get back to his job, both his jobs, as soon as possible. He shoves down his guilt before the feelings get overwhelming.

“I have a request,” Foggy says evenly.

Matt feels a brief flash of panic at the words. They had not discussed how he’d staggered in injured last night and Matt immediately fears this is going to be the launch of a lecture he feels ill equipped to deal with at the moment. He’s been awaiting a lecture from Foggy about the consequences of his less than stellar decision to go out last night as Daredevil regardless of the fact that he’d been (mostly) successful. But both thankfully and surprisingly Foggy has essentially avoided mentioning the issue outside of asking after Matt’s injury/condition today.

“Okay,” Matt says with much less apprehension than he feels.

“This is not comfortable,” Foggy remarks, broadly motioning to the skylight they were leaning/half sitting against. “I don’t want to sit on metal electric boxes or glass ceilings anymore. You need to invest in some comfy chairs for up here. You know those wooden, outdoor chairs that people get for cottages and stuff? Adirondack chairs?”

Matt has absolutely no clue what Foggy’s referring to but says, “Yeah sure.”

“You need to get a couple for up here. I need to lounge in comfort, Matt. Beers or cigars absolutely demand proper seating. This is not comfortable, it is not facilitating chillaxing.”

“Okay. Since I’m fairly certain Fran doesn’t need the view of our behinds squashed into her skylight this is not a bad idea.”

“What? Oh shit yeah, this isn’t even the part over YOUR apartment,” Foggy says, standing up and just now noticing they were in fact perched over Fran’s section of the roof.

“Not going to be easy to get chairs up here,” Matt notes, not getting up, taking a swig of his beer, not especially concerned by the fact his rear is still on display smooshed against Fran’s skylight.

“Yeah and those chairs are BIG. This place really needs an elevator. God, remember hauling all your shit up all six flights of stairs?”

Neither of them are likely to ever forget moving Matt into the apartment. There had definitely not been enough extra cash to hire professional movers, and really Matt didn’t actually had that much stuff, he’d bought most of his furniture and had it delivered once he’d moved in. Still, they’d spent a miserable rainy Saturday hauling boxes of stuff up six flights and it hadn’t been pleasant.

“I’ll see if I can find somewhere that’s wiling to deliver up to the roof,” Matt says. He has no clue if that’s feasible, still no idea what kind of chairs Foggy wants (though thankfully a name for what he needs to find), but decides he absolutely owes it to his friend to fulfill this request one way or another. Foggy has done a lot for him this week. He can’t seem to put his appreciation into actual words but by God he will somehow make this happen as a way of thanks. 

Matt feels only slightly guilty that he wants just one more favour from Foggy.

“Um, Foggy, would you describe the sunset for me?” he asks slightly shyly. He knows it’s a stupid request, that he probably shouldn’t bother Foggy for anything else, not after all he’s done this week. But right now he just really wants to hear it, to know something of the beauty that’s stretched out before him, needs to hear Foggy say it aloud.

The breeze sets off his wind chimes and they softly clink together musically.

“Of course,” Foggy says warmly and without hesitation. He immediately begins a wonderfully detailed description of the sky before them.

The end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A far amount of details for Matt in this fic come from stuff I observed over years of interacting with real blind/visually impaired people - from the eye ball scratching to the petty scrubbing of braille for receiving non-contracted stuff. I absolutely avoided doing this in any other fics after since I fear the end result may be that Matt appears too dependant/blind in this fic. Forgive me - as I said, its the first fic I wrote on nine years and I was admittedly rusty. Thanks for hanging in to the end :)


End file.
